While we have a lot of obvious formal responsibilities as researchers, one aspect of our job that is not talked about is mentoring. While this can refer to formal mentoring of students, I also believe that this encompasses talking to High School and Middle School aged youth about science, and encouraging them to consider science if they want to pursue higher education.

With that in mind, I wrote a guest post for the guys over at Obesity Panacea (click the image above to read it). I hope that people enjoy it, and I hope that labs take this as an opportunity to volunteer their time and experience in judging science fairs (if not more).

Take a read of it and let me know what you think. In particular, the issue of female mentors. I can’t speak to it myself, and the feedback I received on drafts of the posts varied from “it’s not as big a problem as it was” to “it’s important and needs to be talked about.” So my instinct is that this varies depending on personal experience. What do you think?

-Mr Epidemiology

Special thanks to Jess, Kim, Anne, Rachel and Mariane for feedback on this post!