As a graduate in chemistry at UC-Davis in the late 1980s, Susan Bernhard had few female classmates or faculty to consult. “Talking about science, I was fine,” she recalls. “But when I had difficulties with people or with my adviser, and when I had self-doubts, I was very shy. I could have used some coaching.”
Today, Bernhard, associate director in technical affairs at Elan Pharmaceuticals, is one of some 40 women scientists who mentor female graduate students in science and engineering at Stanford. The mentors are paired with students, or “protégées,” in fall quarter as part of an outreach program of the Palo Alto chapter of the national Association for Women in Science. The chapter hosts four dinner meetings on campus each year, and the mentoring pairs also meet for lunch or coffee—even shopping—on a regular basis.
“I’m not a big ‘e-mail mentor,’ so we get together and go for a walk about once a month,” says Helen Moore, associate director of the American Institute of Mathematics in Palo Alto, who mentors biological sciences grad student Christine Jessup. Moore, a former lecturer and visiting scholar in the math department, also tries to recruit Stanford postdocs and faculty members as mentors to balance the preponderance of advisers who work in industry.
Jenny Nyman, a graduate student in civil and environmental engineering, says she’s asked her mentor about everything from how to construct a professional e-mail to how to prepare for qualifying exams. “I’ve kept my own schedule in my lab, so my work has been pretty independent of anyone else,” she says. “At one point, when I was questioning whether I wanted to do a PhD, it was great to have mentors who had PhDs and who could tell me what professional career paths would open up.”
Nicole Deschamps, a graduate student in chemistry, got a complementary match when she was paired with Rona Giffard, associate professor and vice chair for research in the department of anesthesia at the School of Medicine. “One of my main concerns is balancing career and family,” Deschamps says. “Rona is successful in academia and has two children, and that’s been inspiring to me, to see someone in that position.”
Giffard, PhD ’83, MD ’85, adds that when she helped establish the mentoring program on campus 12 years ago, there wasn’t a lot of enthusiasm for it in academic departments. “But now the idea that you should have supportive services has really begun to penetrate into the institutional culture,” she says, smiling.
