IMOD Multi-Mentorship Networks

The IMOD community believes that effective mentorship and the building of strong interdisciplinary network relationships is crucial to the success of its trainees. Building strong networks provides the opportunity to learn from many, consider multiple points of view, and better integrate into a diverse scientific community.

IMOD has adopted the definition of mentorship in an interdisciplinary STEM community as described by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine:

Mentorship is a professional working alliance in which individuals work together over time to support the personal and professional growth, development, and success of the relational partners through the provision of career and psychosocial support.

Formalization of mentorship helps define expectations within the community and benefits all participants in getting the most from their experience.

IMOD has built a number of mechanisms that encourage the organic development of connections, from weekly small group technical discussions, through to networking and discussions at our in-person meetings. Recognizing that some participants benefit from a more structured approach, we have built a purpose-built web app, The IMOD Dual Mentoring Portal, where potential mentors and mentees can upload descriptive information about themselves, which is then used to identify matches and setup dyad mentorship relationships.

IMOD trainees are provided access to an IMOD-designed Individual Development Plan template that they can use to set goals and track progress, which is supported by a tracking framework provided in the web-app.

The IMOD community seeks to provide the broadest opportunities to its members, and by integrating research scientists from its industrial and educational partners as potential mentors, trainees can connect to non-academic support.

We are excited to expand this opportunity to our colleagues as part of our PREM partnerships.

If you have any questions about how you can be involved, either as a potential mentor, or, if you are a member of the IMOD community and have questions about setting up as a mentee, please don’t hesitate to contact us.