PAESMEM Awardees and their Mentoring Philosophies
Dominick J. Casadonte, Ph.D. (PAESMEM awarded 2019)
Dominick Casadonte, Ph.D. is the Minnie Stevens Piper Professor of Chemistry at Texas Tech University. Dr. Casadonte has an active interest in several areas of Chemistry including Inorganic Chemistry, Materials Chemistry, and Chemical education. In his recent role as a National Science Foundation Discovery Corps Fellow, Dr. Casadonte has explored the efficacy of an intergenerational learning and service program in the chemical sciences in elementary and middle schools, involving senior citizens as secondary teachers at the 5th and 8th-grade levels. Studies were performed on student learning enhancement, improvement in cognitive functioning among the seniors, and changes in attitudes between both the seniors and children during their curricular and extracurricular interactions.
Professor Casadonte has an active program in service learning. He has developed a laboratory course that teaches chemistry though the development of novel chemical demonstrations. The students are then required to "perform" their demo show for various K-12 audiences. Pre- and post-content and attitudinal assessment instruments have been developed to determine the effectiveness of this hands-on, project-based learning environment. He is currently working on the development of an intercollegiate service-learning project.
Professor Casadonte was one of the first US university faculty members in chemistry to develop the concept of "course flipping." In 2017, the Flipped Learning Global Initiative designated him as one of the "Top 40 Flipped Learning Experts in the World". His recent research in the flipped classroom includes the efficacy of the methodology, optimum pre-class lecture length, and the effect of peer learning assistants on the improvement of the in-class experience.
Mentoring Philosophy
According to Dr. Casadonte, a mentor can act as a guide, as an educator, or as a service provider. Casadonte has been guided by what he has learned through more than twenty years of mentoring early childhood through 16 (EC-16) students as well as the broader community of Lubbock, Texas. He has tried, in each case, to mentor the individual above all to where he or she is trying to go - to their best self. For many, this has meant mentoring towards success in a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) field.
Mentoring Accomplishments
Dr. Casadonte personally mentored 20 Texas Tech students who applied for, and won, the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship. Since 1995, his mentorship has included working with the Goldwater Scholarship recipients as undergraduate research students, helping them to improve their applications, and writing letters of recommendation. He has mentored 65 students in undergraduate research since 1995. This has resulted in 16 publications and presentations with undergraduate authors. Of the 20 Goldwater winners, five of them have worked in his lab. Since 2000, he has worked with a program called Science, it’s a girl thing (SIGT)! He has been a science advisor for chemical demonstrations and has performed more than 30 of these SIGT shows to more than 6,000 young women.
In 1998, Dr. Casadonte joined eight Texas Tech faculty in developing a Master’s program in multi-disciplinary science designed to address content knowledge for K-12 science teachers, many of whom had only completed 1-2 classes in science during their undergraduate career. More than 80 teachers have successfully earned this special graduate degree. In his work both with the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Texas Tech ACS student affiliate, he has led more than 350 demonstration shows to more than 30,000 audience members over a 27-year period in Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma to provide enthusiasm and mentoring in science as a possible career choice.
His activities extend to intergenerational mentoring through an NSF Discovery Corps project entitled Project Serve. This project gave him the opportunity to mentor a group of retired volunteers who were not STEM savvy but who nevertheless wanted to assist in fifth and eighth grade science classrooms. With an average age of 72 for retirees, this activity allowed the observation of the interactions between the seniors and the millennials whom they mentored.
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Dan Dimitriu, Ph.D. (PAESMEM awarded 2018)
Dan Dimitriu, Ph.D. serves as the Coordinator of the Engineering Program at San Antonio College in addition to teaching related courses. He earned his Ph.D. in Engineering from North Dakota State University.
Dr. Dimitriu has been practicing engineering since 1970 and taught engineering courses concurrently for more than 20 years at various institutions. He joined San Antonio College in 2001. He has been involved with several engineering societies and became a member of the Two-year College Division of ASEE in 2002. His research interests are in engineering graphics, design, alternative fuels, plastics, and engineering education.
Mentoring Philosophy
From the unmistakable perspective of an engineer, Dr. Dimitriu's mentoring philosophy springs from the heart of a designer. His relationships with mentees grow continuously, based on assessing needs, choosing activities, and evaluating the outcomes. He says, "I built my mentoring role to be part coach preparing students for their big game after graduation, part advisor to help them choose the right courses for their career path, part trainer to improve their skills, part counselor to help them in hard times, part cheerleader to celebrate their successes and, above everything else, to be a role model."
Mentoring Accomplishments
Each year, Dr. Dimitriu selects a group of 10 to 15 students who show determination and an intense desire to pursue an engineering career. He forms groups of these students to lead other students in a multitude of projects that help them understand what it is like to be an engineer.
Along with his collaborators, he has built an amazing mentorship and support system for the College and the results are impressive. When Dr. Dimitriu began at San Antonio College in 2001, there were only 164 students with a declared major in engineering. By 2012, there were 687 declared engineering majors. During the same period, engineering graduates have gone from one or two each year to 50 in 2013-2014. San Antonio College is a Hispanic-Serving Institution and, during the last 13 years, over 65 percent of its engineering students have been underrepresented minority students. He has intensively mentored 64 students. Eighteen have graduated from San Antonio College, and 42 have transferred to four-year institutions. Twenty of his mentees have been accepted into research internships at institutions in the University of Texas System, and five of his mentees have received internships with local San Antonio companies.
In addition to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), his activities have been supported with awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Education. The NSF support enabled him to create the Early Development of General Engineering, a summer program designed to attract and retain high school students in the engineering field. NSF resources also support scholarships for his low-income mentees. NASA support enabled a partnership with the University of Texas at San Antonio for student internships at the Johnson Space Center, as well as undergraduate research projects on the campus of San Antonio College. The success of the NASA program led to Dr. Dimitriu's creation of a summer undergraduate research program at San Antonio College where 55 students have participated since 2010.
Dr. Dimitriu received the 2006 National Award for Excellence in Teaching from the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development (a membership organization representing educators from U.S. community and technical colleges.)
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Tanja Karp, Ph.D. (PAESMEM awarded 2018)
Tanja Karp, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas Tech University. Her areas of expertise include signal processing and communications engineering. She has a strong background in both research and education, evidenced by her contributions to the field and her role as a US Fulbright Scholar, where she worked on projects in Namibia related to engineering education and research.
Dr. Karp is known for being a challenging professor, with students noting that while her tests and assignments are difficult, they provide significant learning experience. She is also involved in STEM CORE, where she collaborates with colleagues to promote STEM education initiatives.
Her academic accomplishments include various publications in signal processing and communications, as well as her involvement in Fulbright Scholar programs, enhancing global education and research efforts.
Mentoring Philosophy
To Dr. Karp, the purpose of mentoring is to assist mentees to succeed in their careers, to meet their goals, and to broaden their horizons. She observes that "There is no immediate reward for the mentor other than the gratifying feeling when seeing the mentee succeed, and the new perspectives gained through the interaction." Over more than 10 years of her mentoring work, Dr. Karp has developed many long-term partnerships and collaborations.
Mentoring Accomplishments
Creating new opportunities to engage K-12 students in STEM and engineering through robotics programs is one of Dr. Karp's chief concentrations, but her mentoring also includes undergraduate and graduate students, as well as teachers and colleagues in academia and industry. She sees her role as that of a visionary and facilitator. When she noticed there were no robotics programs readily available in West Texas, she started a K-8 robotics competition in Lubbock and secured resources, such as the participation of engineering students as mentors, so that students can participate at no cost. She notes that for individual students, "the fact of competing on a university campus, or engaging in an informal conversation with me about robot design, and some words of encouragement have a huge impact on their self-esteem and self-efficacy development, as well as their long-term commitment to, and interest in STEM fields."
Since 2006, Dr. Karp has organized the Get Excited About Robotics (GEAR) competition at Texas Tech which has grown from a trial run with a single school in 2006 to about 700 participants in 2015. It is the only robotics program in West Texas (an area the size of many states) offered at no registration fee to participants in grades K-8 in that region of Texas. GEAR is an eight-week LEGO robotics challenge based on the LEGO MINDSTORMS kits. The program is offered at several locations in Texas and culminates in a Game Day, during which teams of students, teachers, and coaches come together to compete. More than 40 percent of participating students are Hispanic or African American.
The competition provides access to an engineering challenge for participants in grades K-8, and offers engineering undergraduate students mentoring and part-time job opportunities. In 2010, Dr. Karp added a service-learning section to her introductory Engineering course for undergraduates who, as part of their service, mentor GEAR high school teams. Over the last six years, over 250 engineering students have served as GEAR role models. K-12 students in the GEAR program who are not local to Texas Tech can participate virtually and, where possible, participate in day-long LEGO robotics field trips that are open to all K-12 students in schools that participate.
Dr. Karp has received several national awards including the INSIGHT INTO Diversity- 100 Inspiring Women in STEM Award in 2015, the Hewlett Packard/ Harriett B. Rigas Award from the IEEE Education Society in 2012, and the Texas Tech President's Excellence in Teaching Award in 2015. In 2014, she was recognized as a Texas Tech Integrated Scholar for her integration of teaching, research, and service, and was the Whitacre College of Engineering Butler Distinguished Educator Fellow from 2012-2014 in recognition of her work related to robotics and engineering education.
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Jorge Lopez, Ph.D. (PAESMEM awarded 2018)
Jorge Lopez, Ph.D. is a Professor of Physics at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Dr. Lopez attended high school in Juarez, Mexico and subsequently earned B.S. and M.S. degrees from The University of Texas at El Paso and a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University. He served as a Post-doc at the Niels Bohr Institute and the Lawrence Berkeley Lab. Since 1990, he has been at UTEP as Assistant, Associate and Professor, and has been Chair and Assistant Dean of the College of Science.
Dr. Lopez has authored books, over 110 peer-reviewed, and many general-audience articles for journals, newspapers and magazines. He has delivered scientific and public lectures in many countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia. His research has been funded by NSF, NASA, JPL, DOD, NIH, etc.
Dr. Lopez has chaired 44 theses, created The National Society of Hispanic Physicists, and chaired the Committee on Minorities of the American Physical Society (APS). He has recruited over 50 students from Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia, and Argentina for graduate studies in the US. He co-founded the Latin American Symposium on Nuclear Physics, and the Division of Radiation Physics of the Mexican Physics Society, chaired the Texas Section of APS, was a member of the Forum of International Physics, Forum of Education, and is a member of the Committee for the accreditation of Mexican physics programs.
He is a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences, and an APS Fellow. He received the Mentoring Award from the Division of Nuclear Physics, the Bouchet Award, the Hyer Research Award, a Recognition from the Texas Higher Education Board, the Nature Award for Mentoring, and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) from the White House.
For 23 years, he has been a mentor to high school, undergraduate, and graduate students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in the greater El Paso area. He believes that mentoring can enable individuals to succeed in their chosen careers and make substantial contributions to their communities and society at large. His mentoring strategies and programs are designed to tackle the challenges for UTEP (a commuter school in a bicultural, bilingual, and binational community), and are intended to reach the Hispanic population in the Texas-Mexico border region to ensure students in this area have access to a Hispanic role model.
Mentoring Philosophy
"From the unmistakable perspective of an engineer, Dr. Dimitriu's mentoring philosophy springs from the heart of a designer. His relationships with mentees grow continuously, based on assessing needs, choosing activities, and evaluating the outcomes. He says, "I built my mentoring role to be part coach preparing students for their big game after graduation, part advisor to help them choose the right courses for their career path, part trainer to improve their skills, part counselor to help them in hard times, part cheerleader to celebrate their successes and, above everything else, to be a role model.""I have been involved in teaching physics for science and engineering majors, pre- and in-service teachers (from pre-K to elementary to high school), non-STEM students, and even high school students. My overarching teaching philosophy amounts to “use whatever works”.
That said, no matter what level I’m teaching, my approach proceeds according to a few logical steps: define goals based on need, look at the background and set up a course of action including the assessment of learning objectives, and wrap it all in an inclusive, friendly atmosphere characteristic of our bicultural area.
At UTEP it is necessary to recognize that a large percentage of UTEP students live and work outside the university, and after their classes they leave campus, missing out on opportunities to interact with other students, TAs, and faculty. To ensure that students have a minimum of quality study time (with teamwork, hands-on activities, etc.), I introduced peer-led workshops in my calculus-based physics. Similarly, I developed computer simulations for my modern physics course and designed a lecture-lab physical science course for education majors.
Another common factor in my classes is my focus on approachability. My office hours include all the time I am in my office. My commitment to biculturalism translates into accepting student questions and answering them in Spanish, if needed; my recognition of binationalism means that I understand Mexican transcripts and help students with different nomenclatures and units. Being from the region makes me a strong role model for the Hispanic and Mexican students we serve. Finally, I make a special effort to mention my awards and my experience in nuclear physics research in Europe and Berkeley to inspire and motivate the students.
I close by mentioning the different pedagogical approaches I have used in the past decades: Computer Simulations, Constructivism, Force Concept Inventory, Hands-on Manipulatives, In-Class Demonstrations, Independent Studies, Inquiry-Based Teaching, Lectures, Lecture-Labs, Laboratories, On-Line Homework Systems, Peer Led Team Learning, Podcasts, Portfolios, PowerPoint Presentations, Radio Shows, Recitations, Response Systems (Clickers), Screencasts, Standardized Exams (ETS), Studio Physics (Active Learning), Team Work, Video Demonstrations, Video-Problems, Web Pages, Wiki Pages, Workshops, and others.”
Mentoring Accomplishments
At UTEP, Dr. Lopez has mentored 32 undergraduates and 26 graduate students in his research laboratory (12 of whom have earned the Ph.D.) Fourteen of the graduate students are in academic positions in colleges and universities, and six work in industry. He has mentored an additional 24 undergraduate science and engineering students through the Peer Led Team Learning program that he started at UTEP in 2008. This program provides students with research experiences, apprenticeships, and workshops on new methods of constructivist learning and inquiry-based teaching. These undergraduate peer leaders have influenced the undergraduate work of thousands of students at UTEP. As a result of his combined efforts, 72 percent of all the undergraduates he has mentored have gone on to pursue graduate degrees in STEM. His Master's-level students are engaged in science and engineering careers, 54 percent of them are working in academia, and 23 percent are working in industry. More than half of the Master's-level students have begun Ph.D. programs.
The focus of his outreach programs are local high schools on both sides of the border given the sizable population of U.S. citizens who live and attend high school in Mexico. With funding from federal and academic sources, Dr. Lopez has designed and implemented seven major outreach and curriculum enhancement projects that have influenced the intellectual and social development of over 5,000 high school and undergraduate students between 1993 and 2013. His research, educational and mentoring programs have been supported by federal grants from the Department of Defense, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Lopez has also demonstrated a commitment to increasing the diversity of faculty in the Physics Department at UTEP where he served as its Chair from 2001 to 2008. He reconstructed the department and hired 11 new faculty, increasing the number of Hispanics and women in the department. His impact extends to the national level through his leadership in the American Physical Society (APS) and his work in 1996 to establish the National Society of Hispanic Physicists (NSHP) to build the national Latino physicist community. He served as the President of NSHP in 2003 and was elected a fellow of the APS in 2007. He was recognized as an Educator of the Year by the Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists in 2011.
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Karen Lozano, Ph.D. (PAESMEM awarded 2019)
Karen Lozano, Ph.D. is a Mexican American researcher who is the department chair and Trustee Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering (MSNE) at Rice University. Her research focus is centered on carbon nanofiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites. She was elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors in 2020 and the National Academy of Engineering in 2023.
Mentoring Philosophy
Dr. Karen Lozano believes in and lives by the value of hard work, personal responsibility, and innovation, and accordingly has placed these values at the core of her mentoring philosophy. She mentors by experience. She notes that adults must be careful when presenting to young audiences, who hear over and over “pursue your passion” at a young age. Many do not know what their passion is, and it could be misinterpreted as “pursuing something that could come easy to you.” She believes that we need to change the message to “pursue opportunities” and “put your heart and soul into it.”
Mentoring Accomplishments
Dr. Lozano has developed a strong Ph.D. pathway and continues working with students while they are at Tier I institutions. Her students are enrolled in Ph.D. programs at various Tier 1 institutions such as the University of Texas, Texas A&M University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Rice University. She has tailored high-tech research projects to maximize undergraduate student participation. More than 200 students have directly benefitted from these research opportunities. Quantitatively, these activities have resulted in 100 percent retention and graduation of the students who have joined her lab. She has been the thesis director of more than 30 M.S. students (20 percent Hispanic women), most of whom were previously undergraduate research assistants under her supervision.
Besides the students mentored and supervised through these research activities, Dr. Lozano has advised more than 800 students individually. The advising sessions are designed to assist students with their academic curriculum, though she always takes the time to talk to them about their goals and encourage them to excel in their classes. She also believes that to increase the number of students pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers, it is too late to focus on students at the college level alone. As such, she also works with K-12 students through a variety of avenues, including her “Magic and Science” shows, which reach thousands of students in small groups. Through her many mentoring and outreach activities, Dr. Lozano has worked with more than 10,000 students, more than 80 percent of whom were Hispanic.
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Joshua Villalobos (PAESMEM awarded 2018)
Professor Joshua Villalobos is a full-time, tenured faculty member in geological sciences at the El Paso Community College (EPCC). Currently he holds the position of Dean of Instructional Programs MDP. He is a native of El Paso and earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in geological sciences from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). He has taken on the challenges of re-energizing the teaching of geology at El Paso's two-year Hispanic-serving community college in the hopes of inspiring more El Paso students to pursue geology degrees. His mentoring is sustained by his sensitivity to the cultural perceptions, socio-economic situations, and family obligations that often face first generation and non-native students.
Professor Villalobos worked to bring an Associate of Science in Geology degree program back to the college, after an absence of several years. This was done to provide his students with an educational pathway toward UTEP. He was able to build the geoscience degree program from its beginnings (one declared major) to over 60 declared majors in seven years. He ensured that the program included sophomore level mathematics, chemistry, and physics courses to align with the four-year degree program at UTEP. As a result of this work, EPCC is now one of approximately 30 national, two-year institutions awarding associate degrees in geology. Since 2011, EPCC has annually produced nearly 8 percent of all associate geology degrees in the country.
Mentoring Philosophy
“As a Geology professor at a 2-year HSI (Hispanic Serving Institution) college I’ve have two key challenges that I must always attempt to overcome through my mentoring philosophy: 1) a natural fear of STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) courses from non-traditional students, and 2) how to convey the importance of scientific literacy through education, field/research experience, and student self-confidence. El Paso Community College (EPCC) has a student body of over 30,000 students with over 85% of the student population being Hispanic. With over 25% of El Paso being below poverty level, and with less than 20% holding a bachelor’s degree or higher, many El Paso residents use EPCC as the primary gateway to higher education.
As a community college professor, I have two obligations to my students. My primary duty as a professor is to pass along my passion for geology to my students. The majority of my students are either minorities, non-traditional (e.g. over 35, single parents, second-career, disabilities, etc.) or at-risk students. I strive to ensure that they become scientifically literate citizens of our community through my teaching and mentoring. My second duty is to help guide, prepare, and aid my students who have decided to pursue their budding passion for geology by becoming majors in EPCC’s Associate of Science in Geological Science program.
But collaboratives, degree plans, and research opportunities are just a map to help students achieve their academic goal. The key instrument in my student’s success is the mentoring they receive as they begin their academic journey in their STEM degrees. The ability to mentor a student academically, personally, and even emotionally is the true key to unlocking their success. Many of my geology majors are minorities and non-traditional students who never considered a STEM degree in their educational future. Often times STEM disciplines are not seen in a positive light in minority cultures due to wrong perceptions (to a low-income Hispanic family “field work” has a very different meaning than what we view as in the geosciences!) and a lack of exposure to others with STEM jobs or degrees. My goal is to get these students who are least represented in our STEM discipline and who have never and would never have gotten a chance to participate in scientific research.
Being a native El Pasoan, a former EPCC and UTEP student, and a minority allows me to understand certain situations that many of my students face and allows me to incorporate them into my mentoring processes. Understanding cultural perceptions, socio-economic situations, and family obligations that often face first generation and non-native students allows me to understand and mentor my students more effectively. A positive side effect of this close mentoring is that my students continue to seek my advice and update me on their successes and progress, allowing me to see the results of my mentoring long after they leave EPCC.
My mentoring philosophy is that students will first learn by doing. As soon as I mentor a student, I begin the task of setting them up with a research project, regardless of their academic background, at UTEP or with fellow EPCC students already conducting research. This process of getting them to do research early on helps them envision themselves as a geo-scientist, which they may have never done before. Through their research they learn the capabilities (applying the scientific method, analytical analysis, conveying data, explaining their results, collaborating with others, etc.) to make themselves a scientist. These capabilities often stem from fear, failure, doubt, and mistakes and are all part of their initial journey in their research and they soon find out they can be valuable lessons. It’s easy to get students to think about science but it is a challenge to have them envision themselves as scientists. But once they learn the tools they need to become a scientist the chances of success increase dramatically.”
Mentoring Accomplishments
Professor Villalobos has personally mentored over 20 EPCC geology students and seen many of his students achieve their A.S. degree and continue with their education into their B.S. and M.S. degrees in Geology. The results of several formative changes have increased enrollment to over 60 A.S. Geological Science majors at EPCC and at UTEP as well. He has also provided them with research experiences supported by small grants from the University of Arizona for supplies and equipment. Hispanic students comprise most of his mentees, along with non-traditional students and students with disabilities represented as well. His students have presented their work to research sessions hosted by UTEP, resulting in faculty at the University joining the network of mentors for these community college students. Additionally, these research experiences have resulted in an increase in the participation of EPCC students in National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduate (REU) Centers. Sixteen of 20 undergraduate students have gone on to four-year degree programs and two have already begun Master's degree programs. Professor Villalobos' 100 percent associate degree completion rate and a subsequent 80 percent rate for student articulation to a four-year institution is dramatically above the national average for community college graduation and articulation rates.
In 2011, after compiling preliminary results on the effectiveness of the research experience activities for his students, he received an NSF award to begin his latest endeavor--the Student Opportunities for Learning Advanced Research in the Geosciences (SO LARIS). This program is focused on expanding the experiences and mentoring that his students are receiving on a larger scale, including initiatives for high school and middle school teachers. Professor Villalobos has made numerous presentations at workshops and meetings of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, and the American Geophysical Union. He was a member of the organizing committee for an NSF-funded project supporting a January 2014 conference, The Future of Geoscience Undergraduate Education, at the University of Texas at Austin.
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Jamboor Vishwanatha, Ph.D. (PAESMEM awarded 2019)
Jamboor K. Vishwanatha, Ph.D. is a Regents Professor and Vice President at the University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNTHSC). He is the founding director of the Texas Center for Health Disparities. Dr. Vishwanatha has extensive expertise in cancer research, nanotechnology, health disparities, and mentoring. His research focuses on cancer molecular biology, experimental therapeutics, and developing innovative nanotechnology approaches for cancer treatment.
Dr. Vishwanatha is also the principal investigator for the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN), an initiative aimed at enhancing mentorship and increasing diversity in the biomedical research workforce. Over the course of his career, he has published numerous scientific papers, receiving more than 10,000 citations for his work in areas like cancer and health disparities.
Dr. Vishwanatha earned his PhD from the University of South Carolina in Biology and an MS from the University of Agricultural Sciences.
Mentoring Philosophy
As a mentor, Dr. Vishwanatha feels it is of critical importance to demonstrate a strong commitment from himself and to expect the same from his mentees. An important focus of his mentorship is to impart self-reliance in the career development of mentees, with the expectation that mentees will complete the desired tasks relevant to their present research career status, enabling them to progress to the next stage along the trajectory for a sustainable career in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields.
Mentoring Accomplishments
Dr. Vishwanatha engages in two general categories of mentoring activities. He serves as a faculty member to students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty who have trained in his laboratory, and he promotes opportunities for underrepresented students and faculty through various institutional, regional and national programs. Together, these activities have resulted in mentoring of more than 3,200 students and faculty.
As a faculty member, Dr. Vishwanatha has personally trained and mentored 36 undergraduate students (34 from underrepresented groups) through the partnerships he has built with minority-serving institutions. He is an advisor to several minority-serving institutions for their specific student development programs. He has mentored 17 graduate students, and of these, 10 are women and six are individuals from other underrepresented and disadvantaged groups. Of the six, two are faculty, one is working in the biotechnology industry, one is a veterinary doctor, and two are currently in Ph.D. programs. He has personally trained 19 postdocs, five of whom are women. Eight of the postdocs have achieved faculty positions, nine are in the biotechnology industry, and two are in non-academic positions.
He is currently the principal investigator of two short-term research training programs (one for undergraduates and one for health professional students), a P20 Center of Excellence in Health Disparities, a Department of Defense-funded prostate cancer training program for underrepresented students, and a minority-based training program in the state of Texas. He is also the principal investigator for the National Research Mentoring Network and the National Institutes of Health Common Fund initiative to diversify the biomedical workforce.
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The Southwest and Rockies Center for Inclusive Mentoring is funded by the National Science Foundation under grants HRD2020697, HRD2020491, HRD2020548, and HRD2020524.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
