The Wistar Institute Hosts Dr. Jen Heemstra, Renowned Researcher Leading the Charge for Excellence in Scientific Mentorship

As part of the Distinguished Lectures in Cancer Research series, Jennifer Heemstra, Ph.D., presented to Wistar faculty and trainees on her scientific research and a professional passion of hers, the importance of mentorship in research. Dr. Heemstra, the Charles Allen Professor and Chair of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis, discussed her pioneering effort to improve one of the most important but under-discussed aspects of scientific research: mentorship.

After the scientific portion of her talk, Dr. Heemstra pivoted to a cause that she says is “arguably as important to me as the science itself,” scientific research mentorship.

For Heemstra, mentorship is indispensable for the training of future scientists, and it takes on added significance due to the unique career path of academic scientists in the U.S.

Non-academic sectors have distinct rungs for advancement and learning opportunities, like the transition from an entry-career position to roles of increasing leadership responsibility. In the non-academic sectors, early-career staff may get advice, support, and guidance from leadership-trained managers and mentors who have held very similar positions in the past.

The academic sciences in the U.S. are unlike other career paths. The stages of a scientific researcher’s career progress slowly and are fairly unidirectional. Many of these career stages culminate in pass-fail evaluations, whether that’s a 6-to-8-year Ph.D. program or a tenure evaluation.

Between the longer-term career checkpoints and the nearly exclusive focus on scientific output, researchers often do not receive the kind of career coaching and mentorship common in other lines of work. This can create a cycle of established scientists perpetuating a culture that does not support coaching because they have never been mentored themselves.

As Dr. Heemstra said, pointing out a key challenge in academia: “We take people who have usually not received adequate training in mentoring or leadership, and we put them in charge of early-career researchers in a low-oversight environment and then give them a set number of years to make or break their careers, whether that’s a Ph.D. or a tenure application. What could possibly go wrong here?”

That’s why Dr. Heemstra launched the #MentorFirst program, an initiative designed to promote the importance of intentional mentorship in scientific research culture, a concept she spoke about in sessions with Wistar trainees and Wistar faculty alike.

“We have to do better, and we can do better,” Dr. Heemstra said. “Some say we have to choose good mentoring or good research, but that is ridiculous! Good research and good mentoring should be mutually reinforcing, not mutually exclusive.”

“If we set out to be great mentors who are kind and caring but who also challenge people to show up as their best selves to do their best work, then great science will naturally follow from that. None of us walked into a lab knowing exactly how to do everything. Good mentoring takes a lot: learning skills, practice, listening, making mistakes, growing, and improving — all the things that took us to grow into effective researchers. We have to do similar things to grow into effective mentors, but the point is that we can do it.”

Wistar faculty were inspired by Dr. Heemstra’s dedication to excellence in mentoring, including Caspar Wistar Fellow Irene Bertolini, Ph.D., who has pledged her support to the #MentorFirst Initiative.

“As a junior faculty trying to find the best way to mentor my group and deliver the best science, it was inspiring to see the passion and effort in Dr. Heemstra’s prioritization of mentorship,” said Dr. Bertolini. “Excellence in mentorship is what we want to achieve at Wistar because it’s what fuels the excellence that is Wistar science.”