Lab mentors recognized by DOE

Teacher, counselor and adviser: These roles fittingly describe each of the 11 Lab recipients of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Outstanding Mentor Award who were honored at a reception held on-site last week. The awards for the summer of 2007 were presented by Lab Deputy Director Steve Liedle.

Those receiving the 2007 DOE Outstanding Mentor Awards are: Malvin Kalos and Patrick Brantley (Weapons and Complex Integration, AX Division); Pam Hullinger (Physical Sciences, AP Division); Richard Johnson and Dan White (Defense Technologies Engineering Division and Engineering Technologies Division); Eivind Almaas , Ted Laurence and Michael Thelen (CMELS – Materials Science and Technology Division and Biosciences and Biotechnology Division); Dustin Froula and Wren Carr (NIF,  ICF and HED sciences); and Ming Jiang (Computation – Center for Applied Scientific  Computing).

The DOE Outstanding Mentor Award began in 2002 as an effort to establish a culture that values mentorship within the DOE national laboratories. This year a total of 83 awards were presented to recipients from DOE national laboratories.

What makes an outstanding mentor? According to DOE, these are scientists and engineers who dedicate time and attention to providing well-defined research projects for the students that match the student's research interests and supportive materials. They support student involvement in enrichment activities outside the student's research project. They provide professional feedback in support of the development of student research deliverables such as an abstract and paper and poster presentations. And, they demonstrate practices that go above and beyond the normal responsibilities to students in the mentoring relationship.

In addition, there are Lab training, security and safety requirements that necessitate work on the part of the researcher in order to host a student and pull together a challenging and meaningful project.

"Lab researchers do an outstanding job matching the students’ interest and skills to support a summer project," said Barry Goldman, manager of Undergraduate and Graduate Internship programs.

Perhaps what makes the awards unique is that the recipients are nominated by the summer students they mentored. Nominations are solicited from students near the end of the summer by Goldman. DOE provides five core criteria to evaluate nominations, and LLNL has supplemented these by an additional five. Goldman reports that with each criteria received up to 10 points; all 11 of this year’s nominations received 100 points.

For example, in nominating Malvin Kalos and Patrick Brantley of Weapons and Complex Integration, AX Division, student Shadi Grayeb wrote, "The memories and benefits I have derived from working with them are treasures I will remember dearly. LLNL is an intellectually stimulating research institution."

Ted Feldman, a summer student, said of his mentor Ted Laurence of Materials Science and Technology Division: "His clarity with words and instructions make the novelty and relevance of his work apparent to all, and it enabled the success and productivity of my summer research."

"The Outstanding Mentor Awards are an opportunity for the Lab to recognize and acknowledge those researchers who have made a difference and an impact in the educational experience of summer students," Goldman said.