OHBM Student and Postdoc SIG Lunch with Mentors

Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre 

The OHBM Student and Postdoc SIG “Lunch with Mentors” event continues each year to be oversubscribed and in large demand indicating the importance of this event to OHBM trainees. This opportunity to facilitate mentor/mentee relationships in a welcoming and casual environment, particularly for OHBM trainees is of utmost importance. OHBM trainees are likely to feel unfamiliar or have much less networking experience at conferences. As such, this Lunch with Mentors event contributes to a welcoming and hospitable environment, especially for new trainee attendees at OHBM, potentially leading to continued future association with OHBM. The topics that will be addressed include but are not limited to: career development, work-life balance, leadership skills, communication skills, and maintaining peer-mentoring relationships. All these topics are vital to the continued success of any OHBM trainee. The desired learning outcomes for mentees include:
- Develop in-person networking skills at conferences
- Identify career development aspects (e.g. finding a postdoc, applying for grants, etc.) that one was less familiar with prior to attendance to the event.
- Identify how one could make the most of a mentoring relationship
- Identify ways to improve or maintain work-life balance in one’s chosen career
- Identify leadership skills that would be beneficial in advancing one’s career

- Develop in-person networking skills at conferences and form new connections with mentors and peers;
- Strengthen career development aspects (e.g. finding a postdoc, applying for grants, etc.);
- Identify how one could effectively make the most of a mentoring relationship. 

Trainees (undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows) and early-career researchers as mentees. Selected mentors will be mid-career or late-career academics or industry experts.