Erica is pursuing a PhD in Biology. Mentored by Armin Mozcek, Erica studies condition-dependent development in horned beetles, where she investigates the role of sex- and nutrition-specific chromatin remodeling across multiple traits and across species that have diverged in patterns of sex- and nutrition-dependent growth. According to Armin, Erica recognizes when a project offers research opportunities appropriate to the skill level and schedules of their students, who are drawn from the IU GROUPS program, the Bloomington High School Senior Internship program, and from among IU students who express interest the lab. In collaboration with each student, Erica executes an individually crafted mentoring plan that familiarizes them with the project, teaches them to collect data using existing methodologies, involves them in all aspects of data generation and analysis, and creates room for the student to grow into his or her own increasingly independent project, ultimately resulting in the student giving lab meeting presentations and coauthoring publications. Importantly, Erica's qualities as a mentor allow promising students to mature as researchers and scholars, creating excellent science in the process. Indeed, Erica’s mentorship is so effective that one of her high school interns is first author on the paper resulting from their collaboration—published in Evolution & Development, the leading journal in their field.

Cassandra Sheridan is pursuing a PhD in Psychological and Brain Sciences in the laboratory of Jon Crystal, where she studies episodic memory in lab rats. Cassandra has mentored many, many undergraduates in the lab, including REU students, Cox Scholars, Groups Scholars, the IU STEM Summer Scholars, STARS students, and IFLE Scholars. She is even meta-mentoring, advising Jon’s newest graduate student on how to mentor the undergrads she is working with. According to Jon, Cassandra develops a strong mentoring bonds with each of the undergrads that she works with, serving as a trusted counselor, guide, friend, and teacher. She works closely with each mentee to develop the rat handling skills and careful adherence to protocols that are required for their projects. She checks in with them often to trouble shoot and refine methods to promote learning. Outside of the lab, Cassandra provides advice on getting into graduate or professional schools. More broadly, Cassandra engages each undergrad offering support and friendship and makes the lab environment fun for everyone on the team. This approach has resulted in coauthorships for her mentees—for instance, on she recently published a first-author paper in Current Biology with 7 undergraduate coauthors. Her mentees have gone on to graduate and professional schools. Cassandra’s mentorship extends to community engagement as a volunteer for Science Fest on behalf of CISAB and serving on the undergraduate poster judging committee for the Animal Behavior Conference. Beyond IU, she served on a graduate student mentoring panel at the International Conference on Comparative Cognition. Cassandra took on the role of social media representative at the CCS conference last year to broaden outreach to the public, reaching thousands of people through social media.