Good mentorship is a cornerstone of good science. Though vital at all career stages, mentorship holds particular value for the most junior scientists, like research technicians, whose work is a vital yet overlooked part of research output. Without extensive formal classroom instruction on laboratory techniques and scientific thinking, younger students and technicians must rely on senior lab members for mentoring, a task that is not often relished. The value of these junior lab members’ contributions is rarely acknowledged in the greater scientific community: “technical” work has historically been undervalued and used to exclude researchers from authorship because their contributions were not “intellectual” in nature.
Many of these potential scientists are forming their initial impressions of academia in a field that already seems daunting and demanding. A lack of effective mentorship can discourage them from pursuing a career in research and increase the likelihood of dropping out of training. Yet despite its importance in creating the next generation of researchers, there is no formal accountability of mentorship in labs where worth is instead quantified in grants won and papers published.
I spoke to Francesca Jereis, a research technician working in the Nowak Lab at Weill Cornell. Though she has always had an unwavering dedication to a career as a physician, the guidance of her mentors sparked an interest in research, transforming it from an obligation to fulfill for medical school applications to a critical part of her future work. Her journey is a testament to the impact that mentorship has on those in the early stages of their training.
Francesca grew up in Westchester County, just north of the Bronx, and developed an interest in healthcare after dealing with a personal health issue. “It was interesting to see science manifested in myself,” she says. Her experiences left her interested in clinical work rather than research. She attended Hunter College and pursued a philosophy major while completing her prerequisites for medical school. “I knew that I wanted to go to medical school, so I knew that it was going to be the last time I could study something other than medicine,” she explains. She applied to volunteer at the Nowak Lab in her junior year when her advisor suggested using research to strengthen her application for medical school.
The Nowak Lab traces migration patterns of metastatic prostate cancer using CRISPR/Cas9 barcoding technology. Currently, their focus is on optimizing this technique for single-cell RNA sequencing. Coming from a less rigorous science background, Francesca was initially faced with the challenge of training to become a molecular biologist from scratch. She had never worked in a research lab or even taken a molecular biology course. She credits her current skill set and knowledge to the guidance of the postdocs and graduate students of the lab. “They definitely had to teach me a lot—things that would have been preschool level to someone that has worked in the lab,” she says. She also initially harbored concerns about toxic work culture, a reality too often seen in academia. But those fears were quickly dispelled by the collaborative and supportive environment in the lab, something that Francesca believes “comes down from the PI.” This environment fostered her interest in research over time, and when she graduated, she decided to spend her gap year in the lab as a research technician.
Work-life balance is one of the main struggles of a career in science. Aside from the main project of the lab, Francesca works on an independent project and fills in for others’ experiments where needed. She wakes up at 4 a.m., a habit preserved from studying for the MCAT years ago, before heading into the lab for ten or eleven hours. As a technician without the benefit of housing, commuting from Yonkers takes her an additional hour each way. Nevertheless, she finds time in the mornings and on weekends for hobbies, and these long workdays don’t faze her. “When things need to get done, you don’t really notice the time,” she says. More importantly, it’s a feature of the mutual respect between her and Dr. Nowak, who in turn offers her flexibility for medical school interviews when needed. The give-and-take of their relationship ensures that she has enough time outside of work for her personal goals.
Though a full member of the lab only as of last August, Francesca already has plans to move on to the next chapter of her life. With acceptances to several medical schools, the only decision now is where to go. She isn’t exactly sure what specialty she wants to pursue, though she now knows that oncology isn’t for her, but she is confident that research will be a part of her clinical practice. In the type of competitive specialties that she is considering, staying up to date with the latest medical advancements through research is a necessary part of the job—and one that she is now well-prepared to undertake.
Francesca’s experience highlights how transformative effective mentorship can be; thanks to the guidance of her mentors, she developed a genuine interest in research that will continue to shape her path in medicine. Research is a field that is already characterized by long hours, job insecurity, and the constant pressure to publish and secure funding. With recent cuts to federal grants further clouding the future of science, it is more important than ever to foster a supportive and collaborative environment, especially for scientists early in their training. Effective mentorship is an investment not only in the individual trainee but also in the future of science and innovation at large.