Genetics graduate student Katie Klimpel from the Brunkard Lab recently received the University of Wisconsin–Madison Award for Mentoring Undergraduates in Research, Scholarly and Creative Activities. Her innovation in mentorship has been an asset to undergraduates looking for research opportunities. Read Klimpel’s reflection on being a research mentor below.
“I have always had a passion and commitment to teaching and mentoring and knew from a young age I wanted to take advantage of opportunities that allowed me to share my experiences and knowledge with others. As a UW-Madison Genetics and Genomics undergraduate student, I had the privilege of joining a great research lab with an amazing graduate student mentor who supported me in many ways outside of research. I wanted to take all that I learned from my mentor and continue offering support and guidance to other undergraduate students in STEM at UW-Madison. As a Genetics PhD student, I have had the opportunity to work with many undergraduate students from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds to further their interest and careers in Genetics. As a mentor, I strive to guide students in many ways, including basic laboratory techniques and safety guidelines, the scientific process, science communication skills, and fellowship applications. In addition to laboratory mentoring, I have a unique position in that I also graduated from UW-Madison, which allows me to offer support in regards to courses and majors questions, and post-graduation job searches and graduate school applications. One of the hardest parts about being an undergraduate student interested in joining a research lab, is that the opportunities are limited, to combat this I have worked on creating a Course based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) that I am currently piloting in my lab. I have taken things that I have learned from being a TA in a genetics lab-based course and used them to curate a class aimed at working with even more students interested in research in a structured, hands-on, environment, while also integrating our labs research goals. This has been a great opportunity to get more students involved in research and interested in different STEM career paths. Overall, I strive to be a friendly and supportive mentor for all aspects of being an undergraduate student and I am so honored to be given this award to further validate and support my approach to mentoring.”