Satellite Meeting: Building careers in MPMI through effective mentoring

Mentorship provides enormous support and guidance in building successful careers for mentees. As early career researchers (ECRs) we seek to find suitable mentors who could help us identify and address our weakness while helping us develop our strengths. We, the MPMI Assistant Features Editors (AFEs) aim to provide a platform to other IS-MPMI early career attendees to learn and gain insight into the power of mentorship in shaping careers.
As ECRs, we often struggle to find good mentors and get lost while navigating our careers. This meeting aims to benefit a wide range of IS-MPMI attendees, from potential mentors to trainees who are likely to also be mentees, where mentees can learn how to choose a good mentor and approach for mentorship, and mentors can better understand the expectations of mentees. Moreover, this session will give opportunities to network with peers, professionals experts ranging from academia to industry. Lastly, mentees would also have the possibility of finding potential mentors.

Learning Objectives: • Participants can learn the importance of good mentor(s) and the power of mentorship in shaping careers.
• ECRs can gain knowledge on how to choose good mentor(s) and the ways to approach them.
• Moreover, mentors and mentees would learn about each other’s expectations during round table discussions.

Target Audience: This topic would be of particular interest to the graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, research scientists and assistant professors. Career trajectories and transitions can be challenging, and this process becomes more daunting if one do not have the right support system. We, the AFEs who are ECRs know the fact that at this stage we require the best support and correct guidance to achieve our career goals. This has also made us aware that we do not know how to identify or approach a potential mentor who would be willing to selflessly guide you. Mentorship is a topic which everyone attending the IS-MPMI meeting can relate to, and therefore we expect that a wide cross-section of attendees will be interested in attending and contributing to the satellite meeting.