Are you an established ecologist, planning to attend ESA in Portland this year, and would be interested in serving as a mentor for the 2017 ESA Early Career Ecologist mentoring program? Almost everyone who has reached your stage of career has benefited greatly from mentorship along the way, and one of the goals of our section is to pay this knowledge forward by facilitating mentorship for the next generation of ecologists. The time commitment isn't huge, but we hope the rewards will be!
If you are interested in participating, please fond our google form at: https://goo.gl/forms/y9y1F1IeEnU6J8912 More about the program and expectations: Conferences provide unique opportunities for biologists to interact with others in their field; however, these opportunities are rarely structured to promote meaningful interactions between the next generation of ecologists and more senior scientists. Our semi- formal mentoring program pairs early career ecologists advanced graduate students (within 1 year of graduating) and recent post-graduates (within 3 years of obtaining their degree) with established ecologists (across career pathways) to establish mentoring relationships, structured around interactions the week of the ESA Annual Meeting and beyond. Mentors will be placed in a mentoring pool. If paired with a specific mentee, mentors will be asked to: 1) Get to know the mentee a little before the meeting- an informal phone conversation, emails etc 2) attend a mentees ESA talk and to provide positive, but critical, evaluation and advice on presentation and communication, 3) designate quality time (at least one hour) for one-on-one interactions with the mentee, 4) be open-minded towards discussing broader work-life issues, if the mentee wishes, 5) be open towards continuing to provide the mentee with opportunities to expand their mentoring or collaboration networks after the meeting has ended. We are seeking mentors who will be attending at least 3 full days of the ESA meeting and are strongly encouraged to participate in one or more events aimed at the broader early career ecologist group (e.g., a mentor-mentee mixer, workshops or discussions on professional development; specific events TBA). Thanks and regards, Fiona Soper, Mentorship Program Officer Early Career Ecologist Section Ecological Society of America Tweet: @ESA_EarlyCareer Email: [email protected] Website: http://esa.org/earlycareer/
