Lucy Shapiro: Mentor

The December issue of The Scientist profiled Stanford developmental biologist Lucy Shapiro as an outstanding example of a scientist-mentor.

"The most fundamental thing a mentor can do for a lab is to help to maximize a lab's productivity," Shapiro says. "That's based on creating an environment of collaboration and respect."

She set the tone by allowing people in her lab to work to their strengths, provides projects for students that should show rapid success, provides fast feedback, and carefully follows the progress of everyone in her lab. And in what I suspect is a crucial ingredient to her success, she also carefully screens people who are interested in joining her lab, taking into account the opinions of her students and postdocs.

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Tags: mentoring, Lucy Shapiro