Summary
October 28, 2026 | 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM ET
For graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, relationships with faculty mentors, advisors, PIs, and senior collaborators can have a deep and enduring impact on your research progress, professional growth, and career development. These relationships often shape access to feedback, opportunities, authorship, career guidance, and support. Yet many graduate students and postdoctoral fellows receive little formal training in how to engage effectively with senior colleagues, clarify expectations, advocate for their needs, or navigate difficult conversations in research environments where communication styles, timelines, priorities, and power dynamics may not always be explicit.
Studies have demonstrated that effective mentorship is associated with greater research productivity, an increased sense of belonging, and higher career satisfaction. Drawing on research and curricula from the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER), this interactive workshop will introduce practical, evidence-based strategies for “mentoring up” — engaging proactively and constructively with mentors, advisors, PIs, and other senior colleagues.
This will be an interactive working session where participants can reflect, share, and crowdsource strategies with fellow researchers. Participants will leave with initial action steps they can use to strengthen mentoring relationships, communicate more clearly, navigate their academic and research environments more effectively, and apply these insights as they prepare to mentor students, trainees, or junior colleagues in academia and beyond.
This interactive workshop will be conducted via Zoom meeting. Participants will be encouraged to engage in practical discussions and activities, and to connect to Zoom using a computer (as opposed to a phone) to fully engage in the activities.
About the Research Leadership Skills Series
Scientific training often emphasizes technical expertise, but successful research careers also require the ability to manage projects, communicate across teams, navigate mentoring and supervisory relationships, and eventually lead independent research programs. This three-part series introduces practical leadership skills that can help scientists work more effectively within research environments and prepare for increasing levels of responsibility.
Across the series, participants will explore core project management principles for research teams, strategies for managing up with mentors, principal investigators, supervisors, and senior collaborators, and practical considerations for launching and sustaining a first research lab. The series is designed to support scientists at multiple career stages, from trainees contributing to collaborative projects to postdoctoral researchers, research fellows, and early-career investigators preparing to lead teams, manage priorities, build lab culture, and position their work for long-term success.
Registration
This event is open for registration.