The benefits to mentors of mentoring

Mentoring novice researchers and students is a great way to give back to the scientific community and recharge your own work life. Rajini Rao, a professor of physiology and director of the graduate program in cellular and molecular medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the US, finds that mentoring offers immense emotional benefits: ‘Being able to mentor a student or young faculty or an early-career scientist is very rewarding, because you can often see the results of (and monitor) their success in a much shorter term than your own research.’

Terry McGlynn, a professor of biology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, finds there are many practical pay-offs of nurturing young talent as well. ‘Working with junior scientists is a really good way to stay up in the field,’ he says. ‘These people are experts in what they’re doing more than anyone else.’ Moreover, he adds, many of these relationships evolve into collaborations.

When you mentor someone, you develop insight into your own challenges, says Rao. ‘Many women don’t want to put their names up for an award or a promotion, because they feel that they will be perceived as being too pushy,’ she explains. ‘When I advised somebody about that, I noticed that I have the same issues myself.’