our TRAINING philosophy
We cultivate an environment of collaborative, coordinated, independent and interdisciplinary professional development. We value the life experience and personal growth that comes with a research training period, in addition to more conventional metrics of scientific productivity. We foster the capacity of our mentees to become curious, ambitious, resilient, cooperative, caring, respectful, intuitive, perceptive, meticulous, scrupulous scholars.
Project decisions are made collectively by the trainee and Dr. Bhatia, with input from other team members. We embrace a “flat reporting structure” such that all trainees serve as mentors, and are also mentored by other team members, but are supervised only by Dr. Bhatia. Supplemental mentorship is provided by Dr. Fleming, the Research Director, who brings 25+ years of research and science coaching experience to the team. We aim to find the balance between (1) providing supportive guidance and (2) promoting independent initiative-driven, collaborative, transparent research.
+ PhD Students
The PhD period is focused on developing one’s skills at identifying relevant scientific questions, and designing both hypothesis-driven and iterative engineering approaches to solve therapeutically-relevant problems. We embrace and leverage the physical and intellectual resources at our disposal, paired with an eye to the individual strengths at hand. Sharpening oral and written communication skills is also a high priority during this training period.
+ Postdoctoral Researchers
The Postdoctoral phase is intended to hone one’s ability to define salient research programs, and to both pursue experimental routes to answer those questions while equipping oneself with non-bench skill sets that are required to run an academic lab. These training goals include effective grantsmanship, recruiting, hiring, and management of mentees, and both oral and written research communication skills.
+ Undergraduates
Undergraduates are hosted to provide an introduction to the scientific process, and an opportunity to engage in a current research question. Mentoring is provided via a 1:1 relationship with either graduate students or postdoctoral scientists. UROPs are expected to commit to a consistent schedule for a defined period of time, participate in basic laboratory tasks in a larger research program, and over time become empowered to function in an increasingly independent manner.
+ Lab Technicians
Technicians are typically hired during a transitional stage between undergraduate and future graduate training aspirations. Technical team members are central assets to the laboratory community, and provide invaluable service assistance to all team members, under the direct supervision of a senior research trainee. Technicians evolve with experience to play an active role in the design of the experiments that they conduct, and can grow to participate in both internal and external communication of their findings.