Transcript

It's a great question that really kind of has changed across the course of my professional development. In Graduate School, my graduate PhD advisor, Beverly Fargo, was really influential. She taught me everything, the foundations of developmental psychology, psychology, development, psychopathology. And then transitioning into my postdoc years, I had two fantastic mentors, Patty Chamberlain and John Reed that really helped me translate that early mentorship into clinical practice and applied interventions and settings. And I would say more recently, it's my my peer group having colleagues that I can connect with on a day-to-day basis, whether they're at my own institution or across the country or across the world to iterate ideas with and. And challenge my own thinking. I think there are two things that I have consistently looked for. One is that there's a research gap. So what do we, what do we need to know in a particular area? So for some of my research on studying delinquency in girls and women, it really was coming out of the field of we, we knew there was a really good foundation around delinquency and prevention of delinquency in boys and men, but we were lacking that similar knowledge base for girls and women. So finding those research gaps. And then second, I really look for areas where we can find kind of translational research to practice gaps. So it's that blending of what we can take from the research into our applied or community or clinical settings to, to really make an impact on the lives of of those that we care about. Champions. I think my mentors have really been champions and those include both male and female mentors. I think it's important that we have a, a broad network and community that can that can serve as our champions. But I would also add kind of that intergenerational pathway is having some of those folks that I've mentored then turn around and be your mentors, right? It's a, it's a continuous pipeline. We need young people, new people entering the field and prevention of prevention and intervention, developmental science. And if you have an impact on that next generation and then they're becoming the Champions, then that helps fuel the next generation of scholars in that area. The most significant challenge for me was when my PhD mentor passed away fairly unexpectedly and suddenly. It was shortly after I had received my PhD, but she was still serving in a primary mentorship role for me. And so that it it happened at the same time, really, I was starting my own family. And so between losing her as a mentor and having my own family at looking back, I realized I was a little bit. Kind of disconnected from the work environment and lost my footing or my sense of direction going forward temporarily. And probably I needed that time, that space, given what was happening in my own, my own life. But I think what turned that around was really just getting back to again, those focusing on what are the gaps, what do I want to study? Where's that translational focus? And then seeking, initiating, finding out new mentors that could fill that space from my mentor who had recently passed away. Well, I think what I've learned is that relationships are foundational. So that's both from the research standpoint, we know that your relationships with your family members, your peers, your significant others really help shape children and family and individual development. And the same applies to us as professionals, as women in science. These professional relationships are personal relationships really are foundational to helping us be successful in science. I think it's essential to be bold to kind of take those chances into spaces, whether that means like approaching a mentor or someone that you want to work with who's more senior to you, even though that can feel risky or scary, but you already know the answer. If you don't make that connection, you're not going to have that opportunity. So what's the worst thing that can happen if you do take that chance and reach out and try to form a new partnership with somebody who you really want to learn from them as a researcher? And related to that, I would say just having an interdisciplinary focus, being able to work and collaborate across different disciplines can help advance your own thinking and ultimately advance the science and the the influence that we can have on human health and society. I think it's the pipeline, right. If we we need to start really early in development of helping increase the pipeline of women in science. And that includes going all the way back to, you know, even primary school, elementary school, having opportunities, educational practices that support science education, science learning for everybody in the school and then continuing that into secondary school, high school years so that that that you have that. Career readiness as as you will. Academic preparedness to enter university settings and beyond. For all people that those opportunities are there.