Postdoctoral scholars traditionally receive mentoring from a single research mentor, but research suggests this exacerbates isolation felt by postdocs and that a dyad alone can't meet a postdoc's full mentoring needs. This is particularly worrying for minoritized scholars, who often experience racial/ethnic isolation and increased negative experiences within academic climates. The NSF-funded Promise Academy in the University System of Maryland (USM) has been working to provide multiple mentors in a myriad of formats (staff, peer, sustained and short term) to help postdocs from minoritized backgrounds have more robust academic, professional, and support networks. Inter-institutional collaboration also has led to collaborative mentor training across participating campuses. Through funding through the NSF, Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES program, USM is working with three other university systems (the University of North Carolina, University of Texas, and Texas A&M University systems) to develop more state system approaches to postdoctoral mentorship, as well as collaborative approaches to acknowledge and support mentors since this critical activity is not often supported sufficiently.

Speakers:

Blessing Enekwe, Ph.D.: Enekwe is the program director for the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs at the University of Maryland-College Park, helping to establish the office in 2016. In her role, she serves to support professional skills development and community engagement through implementing programming and events. She manages two diversity-focused fellowship programs at UMD, the President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, and the NSF AGEP Promise Academy Alliance Fellowship, also serving as the campus project coordinator. She helps to support mentoring initiatives for graduate students, postdocs, and faculty through mentor training. She received her doctorate in government & politics from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Jennifer Aumiller, M.Ed.: Aumiller has been working with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the biomedical and population health sciences for almost 20 years. She is currently the director of career and professional development for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and the director of the Office of Postdoctoral Scholars at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She has her Masters in Education in student services administration from the University of North Texas and is currently a doctoral student in health professions education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.