Supporting postdoctoral mentoring relationships through expanding the Postdoc Academy program

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The Postdoc Academy program is a comprehensive online and in-person professional development program available to all postdoctoral scholars (postdocs) to help them develop the transferable skills that will enable their success in a diverse set of biomedical careers. Our content includes free online courses, open educational facilitation guides and accompanying curricular materials, in-person workshops, and supported learning communities. Our available courses include Succeeding as a Postdoc and Building Skills for a Successful Career, and cover themes related to: joining a new community of practice, setting goals and expectations with a mentor, career planning, developing resilience, working effectively in intercultural environments, leadership, becoming a new supervisor, project management, translating teaching skills into new professional settings, developing elevator pitches, and preparing job application materials. We have reached over 7000 postdocs since our program launch, and 20% of our program participants are from underrepresented racial groups. Our research and program evaluation data has shown that postdocs use our program and its supported learning communities to have conversations with peers and facilitators that they are unable or uncomfortable having with their primary mentor, especially those postdocs from marginalized racial identities. This supplement to our parent award seeks to leverage our national reach, partnerships, and access to the postdoc population to promote inclusive mentoring spaces for postdoc trainees through creating or enhancing mentoring dialogues between postdocs and faculty. We propose to do this through two aims: Specific Aim 1: Improve mentoring relationships between postdocs and faculty mentors by integrating postdoc-led dialogue frameworks into each Postdoc Academy module and our PALS facilitator guide; Specific Aim 2: Improve faculty mentoring practices and their initiation of mentoring dialogues with postdocs through developing virtual resources targeting departments and training programs.