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Christina Bejjani
Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring
Ph.D. Candidate in Psychology and Neuroscience
Bio
Christina Bejjani is a Ph.D. candidate in psychology and neuroscience. She completed her master’s in 2018 and earned her bachelor’s in 2013 from Pomona College. While at Duke, she has competed certificates in cognitive neuroscience and college teaching. Currently, she is completing the certificate for accomplishment in teaching writing in the disciplines and the Preparing Future Faculty program.
Bejjani has mentored 11 students formally through research practicums and honors theses. Additionally, she has mentored psychology and neuroscience graduate students. Her nominations noted her hands-on mentoring approach in equipping the research assistants in her lab with the skills to take on their own experiments. After her students complete a training curriculum that she designed herself, she encourages them to pursue independent research projects while helping them establish personal goals.
Bejjani is a strong supporter of women in STEM, developing a mentoring program for the Women in Science and Engineering group and coordinating across several STEM departments to match interested graduate and undergraduate students. She successfully secured a Professional Development Grant from The Graduate School to form the Women’s Support Network for Psychology and Neuroscience. Through this network, she organized activities and events establishing a sense of community and belonging within the department and providing mentorship and professional development to junior female scientists.
On Mentoring
“The thing that I love most about mentoring is being able to see your mentees succeed in their professional goals and realize their own potential. One of the things I loved most about my college experience was having people who cared about me and helped push me toward the kinds of goals and the career I’m in now. I think the thing that I love most about mentoring is to be able to do that for other people.”
In Their Words
Excerpts from Bejjani’s Nomination
“In addition to hands-on mentoring of individual undergraduate students, Christina has also engaged in unrivaled amounts of peer-to-peer mentoring within her graduate student cohort. Whenever a new or visiting graduate student joins the lab, Christina takes it on herself to get the newbies settled in and train them up on our research tools and processes”
“Growing as a mentor is fundamental to her professional development. Everyone can see her passion for teaching and mentoring others just by the time, energy and effort she put into different mentoring opportunities that she sought out herself.”
“Christina Bejjani embodies the most generous and tireless spirit of mentorship I have ever encountered. She simply lives for this stuff, in a way that puts my own mentoring to shame.”