“Find three mentors and meet with them once a month.” — Carol Gross

4:15 PM. I just finished filming a training video that required me to learn how to use makeup. The filming went better than I expected. I know what it feels like to be an assistant professor, and I am scary when angry. My face scowls like my dad’s. The woman who will edit the film, who knew nothing about me, said, “She has the perfect presence. It feels as if she’s done this before.”

The video will be part of a series by the SoM to promote faculty mentoring faculty. I know how hard it can be for junior faculty to obtain mentoring from senior faculty. When an assistant professor in the 2000’s, I faced two struggles: The senior faculty were so busy that I felt terrible taking up their time to mentor me. Second — and this situation might have been peculiar to my department — the mentors who enthusiastically supported me worked in research areas very different than mine.

In 2002, I attended a Gordon Conference in Newport, Rhode Island. While socializing with a fellow Streptomyces researcher who was near the beginning of her independent career, we encountered Carol Gross. Carol Gross asked me, “How is it going?” Immediately I knew that she understood my predicament — that I had no clue how to run a lab — and I broke down. Firmly she said to me, “Find three mentors and meet with them once a month.”

Seventeen years later, maybe Carol Gross would add more to this rule. But I put her advice as my first post on Jenn Kong’s website so that you who aspire to be faculty — and who aspire to do anything challenging — can know the rule.