122 - Reverse Mentoring in STEM: Changing Perspectives to Foster Dialogue

Poster Board Number: 122
There are separate poster presentation times for odd and even posters.
Odd poster #s – first hour
Even poster #s – second hour

Abstract Body : By pairing a senior-level mentee with a junior-level mentor, reverse mentoring provides organizations with key insights into the personal and professional needs and preferences of staff members from a variety of backgrounds and experiences. Although successfully utilized by the corporate world for over a decade to help employees gain appreciation of colleagues’ lived experiences, reverse mentoring has not been adopted in academic research settings. Given the well-documented barriers to participation and attrition of individuals from historically excluded groups from the professoriate, FASEB established a reverse mentoring program for scientists and staff of scientific societies to assess the ability of this strategy to foster a greater understanding and appreciation of differences between individuals at different career stages and lived experiences. Through participation in reverse mentoring, pairs learn to develop inclusive spaces and foster a culture of inclusive decision-making in their spheres of influence. Our presentation will summarize key findings from our pilot cohort of four reverse mentoring pairs, including applicant statistics, reverse mentoring curriculum, and preliminary participant feedback.