UROP Research Mentor Project Submission Portal: Submission #1007

Mentoring Philosophy As a mentor, I aim to treat each student that I work with and mentor uniquely. While I have a general philosophy for mentoring as a whole, I also recognize that each student has their own unique needs, goals, and skills when I start working with them, whether this is for academic or research purposes. Broadly, I focus on helping my students to develop the critical thinking skills and abilities needed for successfully pursuing research independently. Importantly, I do not simply think about preparing them to be most effective on the current research project they are working on. Instead, my primary is objective is ensuring that my students will be the most prepared and effective for a variety of future projects. When possible, I aim to directly guide them in the processes of research, providing them with my example of how to complete the work needed in research and the most effective way to achieve their goals. I encourage my students to attempt to complete the work independently, after providing an example of the work and clearly guiding them through the steps of the research. In doing so, I help to foster confidence and capability in students, so that they will be more capable of pursuing research independently or with supervisors who may have a relatively hands-off approach.