Strömberg Lab culture and mentoring

In the Strömberg Lab, lab culture is a vital part of the academic experience and the growth of our researchers. Part of our lab culture is creating transparent and productive mentoring relationships between mentees and mentors, especially those between the PI (Caroline) and graduate students, since those relationships are the longest-lasting and most intense. We also seek to build a welcoming lab community, where we can share not just our science or professional pursuits, but also our lives and whole selves. Here are some of the tools we use:

• We use mentorship compacts to set clear expectations for each individual mentoring relationship.
• We maintain a Strömberg Lab Handbook (link for labbies here) that everyone (grads, undergrads, volunteers, postdocs) can consult. It contains, for example, an introduction to the lab, nuts and bolts of grad school, lab safety information, expectations and lab etiquette (a compact!), a code of conduct for field, lab, and museum work, our approach to building a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive scientific/academic community, our philosophy on authorship, mental health and work-life balance, and many more important topics.
• We have weekly lab meetings, which includes grads, undergrads, volunteers, postdocs, and Burke paleobotany staff, where we discuss scientific literature, present our science to each other for feedback and to practice oral communication, do professional development and train to be more inclusive and equitable colleagues.
• We build lab spirit and community through lab coffee hours, happy hours, and other social events such as outings to the Woodland Zoo, bowling alleys, local parks, World Cup game viewing, and movie nights, craft nights, and bake-offs. Lab members also have some shared responsibility for maintaining the lab, including organizing the social events, monitoring lab supplies and caring for equipment, and lab cleanings (the latter tasks under the wise and patient guidance of Paleobotany Collections and Lab Manager, Paige Wilson Deibel)--it takes a village!

You can read more about Caroline's mentoring philosophy here.

Graduate student Melanie Cham leading paleo trivia at a happy hour themed "dress as your favorite fossil".

The Strömberg Lab logo, beautifully stiched by Chiara Smythies,
​former undergraduate researcher in the lab, now graduate student at Cornell University.