How does Duke recognize exemplary mentoring among graduate students and postdocs? An Emerging Leaders Institute team devoted their project to finding answers.
For some people, communicating effectively comes naturally. But for many mentees, communicating with their mentors/advisors was a key issue. Together, we created a resource we hope will help other graduate students and postdocs to be proactive in communicating with their mentors and foster good communication throughout their professional relationships.
This year’s honorees are Sara Danius (Ph.D.’97 literature), Penka Kouneva (Ph.D.’97 music), and Nathan Kundtz (M.S.’08 electrical engineering, Ph.D.’09 physics).
President Price and Convocation speaker David F. Levi encouraged students to embrace free expression and to have the sometimes difficult conversations about the past, present, and future.
“…I get to drive strategy and explore new ways to accelerate adoption at the same time. I love that I get to think about innovative ways to inspire early career scientists to think about becoming fuel cell entrepreneurs, for example, or to make it easier for companies and universities to collaborate with the national labs.”
Beginning in fall 2017, Duke will provide tuition scholarships for Ph.D. students in their sixth year who do not have other sources of tuition support.
“Given the ELI experience, I continue to realize the incredible power of respecting each person’s point of view and leveraging individual strengths and skill sets to achieve a common goal. I also understand the importance of constantly striving to enhance self-awareness to my disciplinary, behavioral and cultural dispositions."
