Toolkits & Guides
- Postdoc Academy Mentoring Toolkits. Postdoc Academy offers support to improve postdoc mentoring practices. Toolkits contain evidence-based practices, videos of postdoc mentors sharing their experiences, reflection prompts, and additional resources (readings, videos, and podcasts).
- National Postdoctoral Association Institutional Plan for Postdoc Mentoring. The NPA Mentoring Toolkit contains resources developed by the NPA on drafting postdoc mentoring plans, examples of effective mentoring activities, and mentoring resources.
- UCSF Mentoring Postdocs Resource. The University of California San Francisco describes best postdoc mentoring practices.
- NIH Guide on Mentoring. NIH Office of Education and Career Development describes effective mentoring practices in STEM.
- Sheridan Center Guide on Inclusive Mentoring. This guide offers advice for postdoc mentors on inclusive practices, mentoring across differences, and communication.
Mentoring Plans and IDPs
Mentoring plans facilitate managing mentoring relationships, solving communication issues, planning goals and responsibilities, aligning expectations, and solving issues throughout the mentoring relationship. Individual Development Plans (IDPs) help postdocs reflect and plan their academic and professional goals.
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UArizona Postdoctoral Affairs IDP (long and short versions)
DocumentDocumentDocumentDocument - University of Colorado-Boulder IDP
Mentoring Organizations
Additional resources on mentoring can be found by exploring the websites of mentoring organizations:
- U of A MENTOR Institute. The Mentorship through Effective Networking, Transformational Opportunities, and Research (MENTOR) Institute offers inclusive and evidence-based mentoring for faculty, postdocs, and students, including a two-part U of A Mentor Insitute Training.
- CIMER. The Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER) offers theory and evidence-based mentor and mentee resources and training.
- NMRC. National Mentoring Resources Center (NMRC) offers mentoring tools, resources, programs, and training materials for individuals and institutions.
Webinars & Videos
- U of A Postdoc Mentoring Series (2021). This series of webinars on postdoc mentoring offers insight into maximizing postdoc experience through mentoring, effective mentoring relationships, postdoc peer mentoring, managing mentoring relationships, and more.
- NIH OITE Leadership, Mentorship, Management Youtube Playlist. These webinars describe best practices in postdoctoral mentoring and support.
- Culturally Aware Mentoring Resources. The two-part webinar discusses cultural awareness in mentoring relationships and offers techniques for culturally aware and responsive mentoring.
Recommended Readings
Phases of the mentoring relationship, National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).
How do I choose a mentor? A postdoc’s guide, The Nerd Coach.
Bottomley, L., What can you expect from your mentoring relationship?, Michigan State University Extension, 2015.
Chopra, V., Edelson, D.P., and Saint, S. (2016). Mentorship malpractice. JAMA, 315 (14), 1453-1454.
Darling, Lu Ann W. EdD. What To Do About Toxic Mentors. Nurse Educator 11(2):p 29-30, March 1986.
Landry, A., and Lewiss, R.E., What Efficient Mentorship Looks Like. Harvard Business Review, 2020.
Lee, A., Dennis, C. & Campbell, P. Nature's guide for mentors. Nature 447, 791–797 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/447791a.
Malmgren, R., Ottino, J.M., and Nunes Amaral, L.A. (June 3, 2010). The role of mentorship in protégé performance. Nature (Letters), 465, 622-626.
Masters KS, Kreeger PK. (2017) Ten simple rules for developing a mentor–mentee expectations document. PLoS Comput Biol 13(9): e1005709.
Beronda Montgomery, Evolving from a focus on mentee to cultivating a mentoring ecosystem, 2019.
Snapp, E., 9 Tips for a successful Postdoc experience, Addgene Blog, 2018.
Vaughn, V., Saint, S., and Chopra, V. (2017). Mentee missteps: Tales from the academic trenches. JAMA, 317 (5), 475-476.
Wengert, E., Mentor as you’d want to be mentored, Science, 2021.
Mass Mentoring Culturally Responsive Workbook, by Mass Mentoring
Implicit Bias: What it means and How It Affects Behavior, ThoughtCo., 2019.
Social Identities and Systems of Oppression, National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Byars-Winston, A., & Butz, A. R. (2021). Measuring Research Mentors’ Cultural Diversity Awareness for Race/Ethnicity in STEM: Validity Evidence for a New Scale. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 20(2), ar15. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.19-06-0127
Cornwall, A.,Mentoring Underrepresented Minority Students (when you are white), Inside Higher Ed, 2020.
Han, I., & Onchwari, A. J. (2018). Development and Implementation of a Culturally Responsive Mentoring Program for Faculty and Staff of Color. Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies, 5(2), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.24926/ijps.v5i2.1006
Womack, V. Y., Wood, C. V., House, S. C., Quinn, S. C., Thomas, S. B., McGee, R., & Byars-Winston, A. (2020). Culturally aware mentorship: Lasting impacts of a novel intervention on academic administrators and faculty. PLoS ONE, 15(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0236983