Graduate student Joe Reda (Hubbell Lab) and postdoctoral scholar Pablo Zubieta (de Pablo Group) have both earned the 2023 Maria Lastra Excellence in Mentoring Award for their service as exemplary and effective mentors during the academic year.
With the award, the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) recognizes the mentor’s contributions made toward mentee’s personal, professional, and academic growth.
“Mentorship is a way to incorporate mindfulness, kindness, and mutual growth into my routine. I have often been surprised by how much mentor-mentee relationships can (and ideally should) support everyone involved,” said Reda. “While science may often be construed as an individual pursuit, I have consistently benefitted from a well-connected lab community.”
“There's a great feeling of joy in being part of the success of others,” said Zubieta. “I am a strong believer on the capacity of humans to achieve a lot when we set our minds to it. I would like students not to feel discouraged by some of the sometimes too daunting challenges of science, so I try to help in overcoming such barriers whenever I can.”
The awardees also thanked the people who had mentored them. Reda cited two “defining mentors” they had worked with in Hubbell Lab: Elyse Watkins, PhD’19, and Andrew Tremain, PhD’21. Zubieta recognized two of his mentors who passed away this year. He thanked his father, Fernando Zubieta-Torres, who he said would always come up with creative ways to help with things like school projects, and Saúl Hernández of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who supported Zubieta’s career and set an example on how to care for the development of students.
This year a total of 11 postdoctoral scholars and 14 graduate students were nominated, with several receiving more than one nomination. In total, 53 nominations were submitted, representing 23 different research laboratories. A review committee composed of faculty, staff, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars chose the award recipients through a double-blind process.
The Maria Lastra Excellence in Mentoring Award was endowed by Juan de Pablo, executive vice president for science, innovation, national laboratories, and global initiatives; Liew Family Professor of Molecular Engineering, and senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, in honor of his mother. The awards are presented annually.
In addition to the Maria Lastra award, PME offers mentoring resources and opportunities, including its graduate student mentor training series, a PME and Biological Sciences Division postdoctoral mentor training series, and a graduate student peer mentoring program, in addition to a range of research mentoring opportunities to support the development and practice of research mentoring skills.
Honorable mentions were also given to graduate student Pengju Li (Tian Group) and postdoctoral scholars Sven Burke (Meng Group) and Lisa Volpatti (Hubbell Group).