A Mentor’s Perspective on Training the Next Generation

Over the years, hundreds of interns have come to the JGI from all parts of the globe to gain lab experience and contribute to ongoing projects. In one way or another, they’ve all mentioned how invaluable their time at the JGI was and how great it was to have an experienced career scientist as a mentor. 

When an intern comes to the JGI, they’re partnered with a mentor (or a mentor and their team) that guides them and works with them to achieve their desired goals and experience. Some JGI scientists even take on more than one intern each summer, describing it as a “mutually beneficial experience.” 

Computational biologists Zhong Wang and Igor Grigoriev are two well-established JGI mentors who have been taking interns onto their teams for the better part of a decade. Wang leads the Genome R&D group within the Genome Analysis team while Grigoriev heads the Fungal & Algal Program. We sat down with both of them to get a better idea of why they’re so passionate about mentoring.

Why/What’s the value?

Zhong Wang: “I’ve been a mentor for over 10 years in a variety of different programs since I joined the Lab. These programs are so diverse and have given me different perspectives. If you try to sum up all of the programs over the years, I feel like I’ve had a really rich experience outside of research life as a scientist. There’s a learning process that comes along with this and it contains three steps: 1. Someone shows you how to do something 2. You do it yourself. 3. You show somebody else how to do it. Mentorship is an integral part of this learning process in my opinion and I think it’s great, especially for new employees/early career scientists.”

Igor Grigoriev: “For many reasons. One is to make it easier for the next generation to get a grasp of science. Without hands-on experience, it’s pretty tough to understand what the job is like. Additionally, internships at JGI give students a unique perspective. During their time in school, they frequently hear about jobs in industry and academia. What they don’t hear much about, however, is research opportunities that take place in the government sector (national labs in particular). Students also help us on specific projects that we normally wouldn’t touch due to being overwhelmed with production and user support. They help us explore leads in different research directions which, if successful, can lead to new avenues.”

What’s the benefit of encouraging your team to host interns?

IVG: “I have a joint appointment with the JGI and University of California, Berkeley, so I’ve been mentoring students for several years. It’s pretty enriching and I wanted to share this opportunity with members of my team. If they’re interested, there’s always a possibility to mentor a student while thinking, planning, and working through a project with them. It’s a great career development opportunity for potential mentors and gives them tools and skills that they can utilize in their careers going forward. Overall, it’s just a really rewarding experience.”

How do you personally manage multiple interns from different programs?

ZW: “There are really two ways you can mentor and create an environment for the interns. You could surround the intern with your team to expose them to different personalities or levels of expertise. Essentially, you could babysit them and watch over every single thing that they do. On the other hand, if you have multiple interns, you could introduce them to each other and have them ‘team up.’ You can design their research projects in a way that requires constant interaction amongst them. Additionally, you can structure the team so that you have interns coming from different backgrounds. Some could come from data science, some from genomics/biology, and they could leverage each other’s skill sets to work effectively with each other on the project.”

What have you learned from interns over the years/What’s the impact of keeping in touch?

IVG: “Many students went to graduate schools or industry (after their time at the JGI) and we still publish papers with their authorship several years after the fact. They helped us to start new directions and some of them were very promising. Machine learning is a good example. We started a project with a UC Berkeley undergraduate student Ryan Albert about 10 years ago and we tried to use this approach to predict the lifestyle of fungi based on what we observe from their genomes. That was quite successful and several years later, we published the paper. The student was the co-author of the paper and although he may have forgotten about that research already, we try to stay in touch and remind them that it’s not a waste of time. It’s not just about giving you specific skills or interesting experiences, it also often results in tangible things like papers, posters, presentations, etc.” Another example of this is an intern we had in 2018, Rhondene Wint. Even though it’s been several years since her internship ended, she frequently collaborates with the JGI and is involved with the UC Merced internship program.

ZW: “From a personal level, you start to realize that outside of the scientific community you interact with on a daily basis, there’s a lot of diversity out there. Besides doing the research, I try to engage the interns in social activities. We go out for lunch together, chat about life, and play sports together. It gives you a chance to learn a little bit more about the intern as a person. One thing I’ve realized is that for some interns (especially those coming from community colleges) there’s a stark contrast between what’s available to them at their schools and what we have here at the Lab. The research community at Berkeley Lab is really blessed to have access to so many advanced facilities and to be surrounded by top-notch scientists. From the student’s eyes, you have a fresh perspective of yourself and your environment and can also better understand what’s on their mind as well. You can actually design a specific program tailored towards every student more easily this way. I’ve really learned a lot from mentoring students from different backgrounds while also having a better understanding of both their personal and professional lives. It’s really contributed to the enriching experience I’ve had as a mentor.”

Mentorship at the JGI benefits students and researchers alike. It opens new horizons and perspectives while being an enriching experience for all involved. 

Want to read additional stories on interns we’ve had over the years? You can read more here.