Unlocking Potential: The Crucial Role of Mentoring in Advancing Analytical Science

LCGC International recently asked analytical scientists in industry and academia to share how mentorship has impacted their careers.

Many successful people seek out the help of different mentors throughout their careers. The vast majority (92%) of Fortune 500 companies have mentorship programs, according to a 2023 report from MentorcliQ (1), which also noted that ompanies with mentoring programs increased their headcounts by approximately 4%, compared to an average headcount decrease of 33% for companies without these programs.

There’s a reason why so many employers offer mentorship opportunities—data shows its key to individual success. Approximately 75% of executives credit their success to the help of a mentor, and 90% of employees with a mentor report being happy at work, according to an article in Harvard Business Review (2). In analytical science specifically, mentorship is even more important, as early career scientists work to navigate a competitive job market.

Recently, the editors of LCGC International asked separation scientists at a variety of different points throughout their careers to share their experience with mentorship. In this article, you’ll find advice from Elizabeth Neumann of the University of California, Davis; Emanuela Gionfriddo of the University at Buffalo; Bob Pirok of the University of Amsterdam; Ronald E. Majors, a consultant and formerly of Agilent Technologies; Michael D. McGinley of California State University, Long Beach; and Jim Grinias of Rowan University, on how to be an effective mentor and where to find a mentor at any stage in your career.

Who is a mentor that has impacted your career? How did you meet them, and what made them a great mentor?

Neumann: I’m very blessed in my life to have multiple people I call mentors. All of them have had such huge impacts in my life. The most prominent one is probably my undergrad professor, Touradj Solouki, Professor of Chemistry at Baylor University. He took the time to explain to me how graduate school worked, and he encouraged me to apply. He told me, based on my CV and my resume, what places I should be going to, and he believed in me, even when I didn’t necessarily believe in myself. I think how I met him was that I just happened to be in his class; we connected in personality and interests, and he saw potential in me that I didn’t even see in myself.

Another important mentor I’ve had is my graduate advisor, Jonathan Sweedler. He taught me how to be an analytical chemist in a rigorous way. How to pride myself on good research, to think creatively, to not be afraid to go after research avenues that other people think are too difficult to achieve. He has always valued things like mental health and well-being in a person. When I met him, I really liked him, and I really liked his story. He’s a trained nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopist, but he switched to mass spectrometry (MS) in the middle of his assistant professorship. That was something I really admired in him—his ability to take chances and to be fearless in the pursuit of scientific integrity and achievement.

Gionfriddo: I had several mentors in my career, each with a unique contribution to my personal and professional development. A common characteristic among my mentors is that they never sugarcoated reality for me. They made me aware of the challenges that a career in academia poses and supported my efforts in achieving my goals, all while offering precious advice on how to build resilience, grit, overcome challenges, and how to sit back and enjoy the little victories along the way.

Pirok: I would say there can be no single mentor. I think you learn a lot of different lessons from different people throughout life that all can have a significant impact on your career. Mind you, they do not all have to be from your work environment. It can be from your partner or friends, who tell you to mind your energy, which, at crucial moments, allows you to perhaps take a step back and prevent burnout. It can also be a person who continuously support you, or even a reviewer that burns down your work and challenges you to do better. I guess logical people to mention are my promoters, Peter Schoenmakers and Ron Peters, who taught me the basics of science and chromatography, or Arian van Asten, who never leaves an opportunity to burn my idea down, while always having my back (yes, you can do both simultaneously).

However, the person I most identify as a mentor is Dwight Stoll. I met him for the first time at—I think—the HPLC 2017 meeting in Prague, Czech Republic. I was a very enthusiastic PhD student who was presenting his work on a two-dimensional–liquid chromatography (2D-LC) separation system for the analysis of nanoparticles. Long story short, Stoll complimented me, but also quickly showed skepticism towards certain aspects. I will never forget it, because usually—out of politeness—people are very indirect and positive about the work. Since then, he has given me input on some of the crucial steps in my career.

Majors: In my career, there were four key people who, at different stages of my development, influenced my decision to become a chemist, specifically an analytical chemist. First was Mrs. Rogers, my junior year high school chemistry teacher at Roosevelt High in Fresno, California. She recognized my keen interest in chemistry and encouraged me to go to the next level. She made chemistry sound exciting in both the lecture room and in the laboratory. She kept me as a laboratory tech in my senior year where I helped prepare solutions and other chemicals for the chem laboratory and encouraged me to help (or at least try) to instill a love of chemistry to the junior students.

Second was George Kaufmann, an inorganic chemistry professor at my undergrad school of Fresno State in California, who encouraged me to do research in my freshman year in his laboratory and urged me to give talks at regional American Chemical Society (ACS) student affiliate meetings. Those talks gave me the confidence to stand up in front of a group to deliver a scientific lecture. Third was Ray Bremner, also of Fresno State. He was my quant professor and saw my interest in analytical chemistry, so he encouraged me to do research in this area and instilled in me the importance of sampling and sample preparation. Finally, there was L.B. “Buck” Rogers, my Purdue University graduate supervisor, who taught me how to think outside the box and how to do the critical experiments necessary to prove one’s hypothesis. He also instilled in me the importance of writing up my results, telling me that, if you can’t put in writing what you have accomplished, then nobody will ever know what you have done and contributed to science. All four of these teachers influenced my decision to become an analytical chemist.

McGinley: Mark Zukowski. Mark ran the inflammatory disease program at Amgen in the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. Mark was not my supervisor, but was senior director and a key opinion leader in Amgen’s early days. What made him a great mentor was, beyond just his scientific expertise, which was considerable. Zukowski knew how to motivate and teach people. He built a team of excellent scientists and leaders who worked collaboratively to achieve great results together. Many of us who he mentored moved on to major leadership roles throughout the biopharmaceutical industry.

Grinias: One of the primary mentors that had a major impact on my career is Jim Jorgenson, who was my doctoral advisor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We met during my graduate student recruitment weekend in Chapel Hill, and had a great conversation about the opportunities that might exist pursuing research in his group. He provided me with several of the foundational capillary ultra-high performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC) research papers that were published in the late 1990s and early 2000s. After reading them, I knew that I wanted to pursue a research career that involved capillary-scale LC separations. We worked together for five years, and I think the thing that I appreciated the most about him as a mentor was that he provided the right balance of guidance and freedom to explore the field of chemical separations without getting too lost. He let my colleagues and I pursue our individual interests, and was always there to provide help when needed.

What are pieces of career advice that your mentors gave you that helped grow your career?

Pirok: The most important one is to carefully consider what questions your data does answer and which they don’t Furthermore, be wary of having your desire for a successful story, paper, or method cloud the actual message that the data demonstrates. A nice example is a retention modelling study we did together in 2020 (3). Initially, we based our conclusions on our own data set. Stoll told me to stop for a second and take a step back. He challenged us to consider measuring new data with a higher precision. Indeed, it turned out that some of the conclusions were affected, and it really improved the paper.

Grinias: The best piece of career advice that Jorgenson gave me related to the future of our field: there are lots of reasons that we need to separate chemical components within complex mixtures, from miniaturized targeted analyses up to large industrial scales. We may not know the exact application or specific mechanisms that will be utilized, but there will always be a need for separation science. I have passed on this same information to my students when they inquire about the importance of chromatography research experience in their careers.

How do you find a good mentor? Why is it important to have one?

Neumann: One step I usually suggest is that you should be available to find a mentor and to be mentored. That means you’re willing to take advice, you’re willing to self-reflect, and you’re willing to see areas where you can improve. You’d be surprised how many people aren’t ready to hear how to improve. Not like horrible criticism, but rather, how do you improve as an individual? You must be open to that kind of feedback. Further, I think being available for networking is big so you can find out what you want from a mentor before you even approach any potential mentors.

Once you have an idea of what mentoring you need, it becomes much easier to target people. Part of being in a mentor–mentee relationship is that it is a two-way street. You must give about as much as you’re receiving, and I think young people underestimate how much they can give to mentors. I think one should consider, are you ready to be mentored? And if you are, what kind of mentoring do you need? Then, look for a society that provides either a list of people who are ready to mentor, and try to network at conferences, in your department, or at departmental events.

Gionfriddo: That’s a difficult answer, since I believe my mentors found me. In general, I believe the basis for a good mentor-mentee relationship is sharing the same values and work ethic and being open to listening to each other. It is also important for a mentee to learn how to take tough advice and for mentors to try to build on the strengths of the mentee while working on addressing their shortcomings. A good mentor is someone who can inspire you to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, especially when you don’t know yet what your full potential can be.

McGinley: I would suggest looking for the experts, ones that others look upon for advice. This person must also have integrity and compassion for others; what good is advice and guidance from someone who is morally bankrupt? The key is to ask for help from experts, which may require some humility. Based on their response and interest in your success, that will determine if you want them to be your mentor.

Pirok: Contact the person—even if you don’t know the person well—who has given you useful (critical) feedback, or who thinks very different than you do. This does require you to be open to criticism. I feel we far too often are too sensitive to criticism because we perceive it negatively. Of course, it is not always that great to hear something negative about your work, especially if they are right, but it is precisely this reason why you should have someone like that near you. To attract this, you need to radiate that you are open to it. Remember that people usually only do this if they feel you are worth it. It is a compliment to you.

Majors: Try to find someone who has had experience in life that you want to pursue. For example, an academic who has never worked in industry or consulted for industry may not be able to transfer that knowledge that you need to be successful at the entry level, since they have never experienced a real work environment. If you are already in an industrial position, try to align yourself with a people person who truly wants you to be successful as a potential lifelong employee.

Grinias: The key thing to look for is someone who has a position that you may be aspiring to, or perhaps more importantly, has mentored other people into positions like one that you may be pursuing. In addition to that, it is generally a good idea to find people with which you have a good rapport and are accessible when you may be seeking advice.

Where can someone who is new to the industry look to find a mentor?

Neumann: If you identify as a woman, there is Females in Mass Spectrometry (FeMS). There’s also the American Chemical Society (ACS), which has a lot of mentoring initiatives for young women. They focus on women in chemistry. There’s also Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minoritized Scientists (ABRCMS), which is for minority scientists. If you identify with one of those minority populations, a lot of those larger chemistry and analytical chemist societies will have mentoring programs to help these individuals persist in science. So that’s more of a formalized way to look for mentoring. The Society for Mass Spectrometry has some as well. Pittcon has a couple resources as well.

The easiest place to look is just locally in your department; lots of faculty members like mentoring, and I have lots of friends and interested industry people that also really appreciate the opportunity to talk to others. I encourage young students especially to think about what jobs they want and to do informational interviews, where you email someone with no other goal than to learn about who they are, how they got where they are, and what their job is. You’ll find a lot of mentoring opportunities through these informational interviews.

You can usually start this process by cold emailing. Some people won’t respond, but some will, and through this, you’ll learn. What jobs do you like? What aspects of these jobs are true? Are there things you’re learning about jobs that you never knew? As you meet people, you’ll find people you click with, and then those are the people that make fantastic mentors. Those organic relationships get fostered through these small interactions that build up over time.

References

(1) Francis, L.; Cook, S. Growth in Mentoring Builds Success. ATD 2023. https://www.td.org/atd-blog/growth-in-mentoring-builds-success (accessed 2024-7-10)

(2) Gross, C. A Better Approach to Mentorship. Harvard Business School Publishing 2023. https://hbr.org/2023/06/a-better-approach-to-mentorship (accessed 2024-7-10)

(3) Den Uijl, M. J.; Schoenmakers, P. J.; Schulte, G. K.; Stoll, D. R. Measuring and Using Scanning-Gradient Data for Use in Method Optimization for Liquid Chromatography. J. Chromatogr. A 2021, 1636, 461780. DOI: 10.1016/j.chroma.2020.461780

Elizabeth Neumann is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Davis.

Emanuela Gionfriddo is an associate professor of chemistry at the University at Buffalo, in Buffalo, New York.

Bob W. J. Pirok is an assistant professor of analytical chemistry at the Van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Science (HIMS) at the University of Amsterdam.

Ronald E. Majors was a senior scientist with Agilent Technologies, as well as Column Editor Emeritus for LCGC Magazine.

Michael McGinley is a lecturer at California State University, Long Beach.

Jim Grinias is a professor in the department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey.