Mentoring and Coaching Within NRMN

NRMN Mentoring

Mentoring within NRMN entails a collaborative learning relationship that proceeds through purposeful stages over time and has the primary goal of helping mentees acquire the essential competencies needed to progress to the next stage of their career in the biomedical or behavioral sciences.

All NRMN programs are available to individuals regardless of race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status.

Who is an NRMN Mentor?

An NRMN mentor is an advanced career professional who engages in a dynamic reciprocal relationship with a less experienced professional (mentee). The focus of this relationship is to support the career and psychosocial development of the mentee and promote the ongoing professional development of the mentor.

An effective mentor has the ability to understand each mentee’s unique needs and desires, as well as the flexibility and humility to adjust their approach as necessary to support the mentee’s success.

Attributes of an Effective Mentor

Effective mentors strive to gain knowledge and skills across 5 domains of mentoring: research skills, interpersonal skills, psychosocial skills, diversity/culturally-focused skills, and sponsorship skills.

NRMN Coaching

In NRMN, coaching is designed to complement research and other mentoring by identifying as coaches scientists with high levels of experience and expertise with respect to what it takes to be successful in science careers and guiding others to success.

NRMN coaching has some similarities to mentoring, but differs in that often includes coaching groups of mentees versus individuals. Coaching is also very active – i.e. setting out to teach a complex skill – and can be very intensive over a period of time.

For example, NRMN is deploying four successful models for guiding groups of young scientists to learn the complex skills of writing successful research grants through engaged processes over several months to years. NRMN Career Coaches will have ‘insider knowledge’ of what it takes to be successful in a particular career which they then teach to individual or groups of mentees.

Who is an NRMN Coach?

NRMN carefully selects coaches who are successful professional scientists with a deep and authoritative knowledge of their field, and who demonstrate high-level mentoring skills.

Coaches are specially trained in teaching, motivating, and developing the talents of others as they seek and progress into careers.

In contrast to traditional research mentors, coaches have no supervisory or evaluative role; NRMN coaches usually are not even at the same institution as those they are coaching. NRMN coaches are selected for and/or are provided with training for working effectively with groups and individuals from diverse backgrounds.  They coach their mentees around a particular topic or skill, but can also assist as an independent career consultant.