Mentoring practices that predict doctoral student outcomes in a biological sciences cohort.

Despite the importance of a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives in biological research, women, racial and ethnic minorities, and students from non-traditional academic backgrounds remain underrepresented in the composition of university faculty. Through a study on doctoral students at a research-intensive university, we pinpoint advising from faculty as a critical component of graduate student experiences and productivity. Graduate students from minority backgrounds reported lower levels of support from their advisors and research groups. However, working with an advisor from a similar demographic background substantially improved productivity and well-being of these students. Several other aspects of mentoring practices positively predicted student success and belonging, including frequent one-on-one meetings, empathetic and constructive feedback, and relationships with other peer or faculty mentors. Our study highlights the need to renovate graduate education with a focus on retention-not just recruitment-to best prepare students for success in scientific careers.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Debray et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)