To foster diversity, equity and inclusion in the C. elegans research community, we propose a “mentor match” program to facilitate mentoring relationships for career development.

Rationale: Mentoring within the larger C. elegans community, in contrast to intra-institutional mentoring, provides an opportunity for mentees to gain from the collective experience of the community. The community already does this on an ad hoc basis, but a more open and accessible mentoring program is needed, especially for people who are members of underrepresented groups in our community.

(1) If you are willing to act as a MENTOR, please fill out this short (5 min) prospective MENTOR survey form by December 1.

·         The survey collects information that will help prospective mentees identify potential mentors and will help the mentor match committee make informed matches.

·         The survey includes a place for you to indicate your desired level of involvement.

·         Prospective mentor lists will be made public for prospective mentees to browse.

(2) If you or someone you know is NOT currently in academia and may be interested in acting as a mentor for worm people considering non-academic career paths, please add  their name and contact info here so that we can send them the prospective MENTOR survey.

(3) If you or someone you know is a retired lab head who may wish to act as a mentor, please put their name and contact info here so that we can send them the prospective MENTOR survey.

(4) Please forward this message to anyone you think may be interested in the program as a mentor or mentee. 

A MENTEE survey will be announced via Wormbase in December, as soon as the prospective mentors are in place.

For general logistics, instructions, and timeline for both prospective mentors and mentees( but please ignore out of date links on the wiki page and use the ones above).

With best wishes,

-The C. elegans community mentor match committee for 2022