Sam Hopkins - Mentoring to Empower Researchers

Sam Hopkinsis now the teaching fellow in learning development on the biosciences foundation year programme at the University of Surrey. Before this she worked in the Researcher Development Programme at the University of Surrey. She has designed a range of training and support activities for researchers at doctoral and postdoctoral level and lead on the mentoring programmes. The mentoring programmes cover four main transition points in the academic career: for final-year undergraduates thinking about moving into academia; for new doctoral researchers; for early career researchers making the move towards funding or a permanent academic position; and for those making the transition out of academia and into other areas of work. Sam studied BSc Zoology in the UK and then completed her MSc and PhD in South Africa. Following completion of her doctorate, she held positions as tutor and then lecturer at the University of the Western Cape. She then continued her postdoctoral research career in biological sciences at the University of Surrey and spent a short time at the Zoological Society of London creating a course for fellows on the EDGE Programme. Sam met Alison through their work at the University of Surrey and Susan at various researcher support conferences.Susan A. Brooksis Director of Researcher Development at Oxford Brookes University where she develops, oversees and delivers the professional development and skills training programmes for research students and research-active staff at all levels across the university. She began her academic career by completing a doctorate, in pathology, at University College London Medical School in 1990. She continued with postdoctoral cancer research at the same institution until 1995 when she joined Oxford Brookes University, initially as a Senior Lecturer in Cell Biology, and later as Reader. Her interest in researcher development began in 2006 when she took what was originally planned to be a three-year half-time secondment that eventually turned into an ongoing passion fuelled by her own experience of the joys and challenges of attempting to build a career from the starting point of being a researcher. She continues to teach biomedical sciences to undergraduates and heads a small cancer research team alongside her researcher development role. She was promoted to Professor in 2016, partly based on her researcher development work. Susan has a deep interest in mentoring, having established a university-wide research staff mentoring scheme in 2015 and, over the course of her career so far, having benefited from the wisdom, experience and friendship of many formal and informal mentors. She first met Sam when they were thrown together with the task of delivering a workshop on mentoring at a researcher development conference, and met Alison through Sam.Alison Yeungis an independent academic writing consultant. She has substantial experience of designing and delivering writing training to academics in various research institutions in the South East of England. Prior to working independently, Alison had been Writing Skills Teaching Fellow at the University of Surrey for seven years, where she had responsibility for the design and delivery of writing training for doctoral researchers. While her professional career of over 30 years has been in the teaching of English and the design of teaching materials, her doctoral research, which she completed in 2004, was in Systematic Christian Theology and Chinese Philosophy. This deep interest in understanding the differences, and indeed similarities, between cultures has served her well in her work to support doctoral researchers in todays international academic environment. She continues to be passionate about the importance of intercultural understanding in our higher education institutions. Alison first met Sam at the University of Surrey, and since then they have worked together on a number of projects. It was through Sam that Alison met Susan at the start of this book project.