Rhee Training Philosophy
My mentoring goal is to foster a safe, happy, and intellectually rigorous environment for student to become an independent, effective, and successful leader. I strive to assist them to learn how to identify interesting, solvable problems on their own and foster an engaging environment for them to learn and apply innovative methods to solve the problems, often in collaboration with others in and out of our lab. I do this by maintaining an interdisciplinary group where diverse people develop projects and form teams. I feel a sense of duty to see them flourish intellectually and personally during their tenure in my lab. I meet with everyone on a regular basis, weekly or biweekly, where we discuss their research and training goals, progress, and problems. I also advise students on career development, mental/physical health states, and work/life balance throughout their tenure. Every six months, each lab member does a self-assessment of individual development plans where they evaluate all aspects of scholarship, project management, leadership, communication, career planning, well-being, and building a mentoring network. Then we get together 1:1 to go over these evaluations, identify target skills for the next 6 months, and brainstorm solutions to get there.
I emphasize training students on effective writing and speaking. I am a strong proponent of training students to write and edit independently, typically going through multiple rounds of revisions and discussions. I respect their voice and style and focus on target areas of improvement, not by rewriting, but providing my perspective. They also have ample opportunities in preparing and delivering presentations during weekly group meetings (20+ people), internal PRI seminar series (100+ people), and conferences. Typically, students in my group give ~6-8 presentations/year. Finally, students gain opportunities to learn how to mentor and advise students who come through our lab as undergrad interns.
Besides training people in the science, I consider training of the scientist to be equally important. I try to foster qualities such as intellectual generosity, intellectual integrity, creativity, and vision. Intellectual generosity does not merely stop at being generous in sharing results and reagents, but also ideas, constructive criticisms, and empathy in other people’s problems. The best way to learn this is by example from role models. I encourage people in my group to seek, recognize, and appreciate such qualities in their peers, advisors, mentors, and other scientists. Intellectual integrity is another quality I emphasize, mostly to the beginning researchers. When one is starting out in designing and performing experiments, it is very easy for one’s enthusiasm to overshadow the absolute objectivity required. I aim to instill the highest standards of integrity in several ways. First, I strive to create a safe environment where failure and unexpected results are considered essential and important components of research. I emphasize reproducibility, replication, controls, rigorous lab notebook documentation, and statistical evaluations frequently in our lab meetings, journal clubs, and check-ins. Finally, I try to foster an environment where respectful and constructive candor is practiced in providing feedback across members.
Sue Rhee
I emphasize training students on effective writing and speaking. I am a strong proponent of training students to write and edit independently, typically going through multiple rounds of revisions and discussions. I respect their voice and style and focus on target areas of improvement, not by rewriting, but providing my perspective. They also have ample opportunities in preparing and delivering presentations during weekly group meetings (20+ people), internal PRI seminar series (100+ people), and conferences. Typically, students in my group give ~6-8 presentations/year. Finally, students gain opportunities to learn how to mentor and advise students who come through our lab as undergrad interns.
Besides training people in the science, I consider training of the scientist to be equally important. I try to foster qualities such as intellectual generosity, intellectual integrity, creativity, and vision. Intellectual generosity does not merely stop at being generous in sharing results and reagents, but also ideas, constructive criticisms, and empathy in other people’s problems. The best way to learn this is by example from role models. I encourage people in my group to seek, recognize, and appreciate such qualities in their peers, advisors, mentors, and other scientists. Intellectual integrity is another quality I emphasize, mostly to the beginning researchers. When one is starting out in designing and performing experiments, it is very easy for one’s enthusiasm to overshadow the absolute objectivity required. I aim to instill the highest standards of integrity in several ways. First, I strive to create a safe environment where failure and unexpected results are considered essential and important components of research. I emphasize reproducibility, replication, controls, rigorous lab notebook documentation, and statistical evaluations frequently in our lab meetings, journal clubs, and check-ins. Finally, I try to foster an environment where respectful and constructive candor is practiced in providing feedback across members.
Sue Rhee