Journal article
Lighting pathways to success in STEM: a virtual Laboratory Meeting Programme (LaMP) mutually benefits mentees and host laboratories
Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences, v 291(2023), pp 20240149-20240149
May 2024
PMID: 38808447
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Developing robust professional networks can help shape the trajectories of early career scientists. Yet, historical inequities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields make access to these networks highly variable across academic programmes, and senior academics often have little time for mentoring. Here, we illustrate the success of a virtual Laboratory Meeting Programme (LaMP). In this programme, we matched students (mentees) with a more experienced scientist (mentors) from a research group. The mentees then attended the mentors' laboratory meetings during the academic year with two laboratory meetings specifically dedicated to the mentee's professional development. Survey results indicate that mentees expanded their knowledge of the hidden curriculum as well as their professional network, while only requiring a few extra hours of their mentor's time over eight months. In addition, host laboratories benefitted from mentees sharing new perspectives and knowledge in laboratory meetings. Diversity of the mentees was significantly higher than the mentors, suggesting that the programme increased the participation of traditionally under-represented groups. Finally, we found that providing a stipend was very important to many mentees. We conclude that virtual LaMPs can be an inclusive and cost-effective way to foster trainee development and increase diversity within STEM fields with little additional time commitment.
Metrics
9 Record Views
Details
- Title
- Lighting pathways to success in STEM: a virtual Laboratory Meeting Programme (LaMP) mutually benefits mentees and host laboratories
- Creators
- Katie E Lotterhos - Northeastern UniversityMoisés A Bernal - Auburn UniversityMegan Phifer-Rixey - Department of Biology, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USATorrance Hanley - Sacred Heart University
- Publication Details
- Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences, v 291(2023), pp 20240149-20240149
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Grant note
- National Science Foundation
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Biology
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:001239724600003
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85194871919
- Other Identifier
- 991021881458304721
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Biology
- Ecology
- Evolutionary Biology