Mentor Report Example

It is my great pleasure to nominate Dr. Bernhard Luscher, Professor of Biology, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, and Psychiatry for the Howard B. Palmer Mentoring Award. As the director of Center of Molecular Investigation of Neurological Disorders (CMIND), Dr. Luscher has demonstrated extraordinary commitment and effectiveness as a mentor, with persistent effort to provide mentoring of many graduate students and junior faculty members.

I started to work with Dr. Luscher when I first joined the faculty of Biology Department in 2011. My office and laboratory are next to his at the same floor of Life Sciences Building. For the past 5 five years, I have had the privilege of learning from Dr. Luscher in his role in mentoring graduate students,
Dr. Luscher was always willing to share his experience and knowledge of teaching related information. Long before my class begins, he has invited me to visit his class when he was teaching BIOL 469 (Neurobiology) with over a hundred undergraduate students. There I got the first-hand experience on how to organize lectures and handle students’ questions. After I started my course, he continued to provide me various professional resources, opportunities, and networks to help me improve teaching skill. Particularly, whenever I have difficult situations to deal with, I always came to discuss with him and every time he provided me useful suggestions to solve these teaching related problems.

The grant application could be a painful process for junior faculty. Since my first grant application at PSU, I have received subcutaneous support from Dr. Luscher. Starting from crafting, polishing, all the way to final submission, Dr. Luscher gave me many advices on how to put the grant logically, pointed out the weaknesses in my grant, and helped me understand the meaning of reviewers’ comments. Most importantly, when I was sad on the rejection of my grant applications, he was there to provide emotional support and encouragement through continuous counseling and