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What’s Fostering Grads?
Fostering Grads is a mentoring program framed within the Career Development & Advisory (CDA) commitees of the non-profit association Españoles Científicos en USA (ECUSA).
Our goal is to connect young Spanish scientists (mostly predoctoral students) with mentors established in the USA in the area of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) to provide the mentees with the possibility of a predoctoral stay in the US and to boost their potential to develop a career with international projection.
Mission Statement
Fostering Grads purpose is to provide tools to young Spanish scientists (mainly PhD students in STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) with the ultimate goal of promoting their professional career internationally. Our ambition is to promote the potential of the mentees to develop a professional career with greater projection, strengthen their international networking and improve their employment outlook in the future.
Fostering Grads has as its main goal to connect PhD students (mentees) with Spanish STEM professionals (mentors) already established in the US working in academia, private sector, government agencies, science politics, management or administration. Through this contact with the mentors, we want to promote the professional development of the mentees, helping them to identify in teresting job positions and offering them the necessary advice and support to expand their horizons and professional opportunities once they return to Spain after their stay in the United States.
Mentors
We are recruiting mentors
If you would like to participate as a mentor in this program, please contact us at fostergrads@ecusa.es with the following information:
Contact details: full name and email address.
Discipline, field or area in which you work.
Institution where you work.
Position.
ECUSA Chapter to which you belong (if applicable).
2023 Program
At Fostering Grads we are thrilled to announce that we just launched our 2023 Program in collaboration with the University of La Laguna (ULL). 10 PhD students will participate in the Fostering Grads program as mentees. Their main goal is to carry out a pre-doctoral stay of at least 3 months in the US while receiving professional advice and training from their mentors during the entire program (12 months)..
Among all the volunteers, we will select 10 mentors (one per student) while the rest will be kept in our databases to participate in new cycles of Fostering Grads with other Spanish universities in the years to come. For this reason, we need enthusiastic mentors. At Fostering Grads we are creating incentives to make your participation as a mentor more enjoyable (certificates of participation, a free year of ECUSA membership, webinars to reinforce your mentoring knowledge and the opportunity to spread the word about your work throughout ECUSA). At Fostering Grads we are creating incentives to make your participation as a mentor more enjoyable (certificates of participation, a free year of ECUSA membership, webinars to reinforce your mentoring knowledge and the opportunity to spread the word about your work throughout ECUSA).
Mentors must meet the following requirements:
Hold a doctorate degree.
Have proven experience in the field of Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) in academia, private sector, government agencies, science policy, management or administration.
Be physically present in the United States carrying out your professional activity.
The mentor’s responsibilities are:
Advise the mentee in all matters relating to their professional development (the mentor-mentee relationship will be carried out by professional affinity and area of work).
Maintain frequent communication with the mentee during the time established in the planning.
Participate in all the activities that Fostering Grads will make available to strengthen their training as a mentors.
Contact Fostering Grads leaders immediately if any setbacks arise.
Complete program evaluation and assessment surveys.
Participate in the different marketing activities that will be carried out during the program, whether in the form of podcasts, videos, interviews and/or text.
We encourage you to participate!
We want to have your experience and professionalism to help us turn Fostering Grads into a great mentoring program from which all Spanish universities can benefit. To become a ECUSA mentor email us to fostergrads@ecusa.es
At the same time, we take this opportunity to kindly ask you to spread our program among your peers.
We are waiting for you!
Mentees
The following requirements must be met:
Be currently enrolled in a doctoral program in the field of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).
Spanish nationality.
Be selected by the University where you are studying your doctoral degree to participate in Fostering Grads.
Become an ECUSA member.
The mentees have the following duties:
Have a basic knowledge of the field of interest in which you plan to do your pre-doctoral stay in the United States.
Be proficient in written and spoken English.
Keep frequent communication with the mentor during the established mentoring time.
Participate in all program activities focused on professional development (webinars, conferences, etc.) and the social engagement of the mentee.
Contact program leaders immediately if any problems arise.
Conduct interviews and complete the program evaluation and assessment surveys as well as the final summary upon the return to Spain.
Participate in the different marketing activities that will be carried out during the Program, whether in the form of podcasts, videos, interviews, audio and/or written. Everything will be developed with the help of ECUSA’s technical staff.
Contribute to the spreading, diffusion and promotion of the Fostering Grads program in audiovisual media.
Who we are
Team
Violeta Durán Laforet
Violeta is a postdoctoral researcher at the Neurobiology department at University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. She has a degree in Pharmacy by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. After getting her degree she joined the Neurovascular Research Unit of the Medical School at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid where she pursued her PhD studies. During her doctorate she was a visiting scientist at the Neuroprotection Research Lab at Harvard Medical School under Professor Eng Lo’s supervision. In 2021 she joined Dori Schafer’s lab where she studies the role of senescent cells in the development of neurodegenerative pathologies.
Pablo Giménez Gómez
Pablo studied Psychology and did his masters in drug abuse research at the Universidad de Valencia. After that, he obtained his PhD at Universidad Complutense Medical School where his research focused on studying new drugs to reduce alcohol consumption at the preclinical level. Currently he works at University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School as a postdoctoral researcher studying the molecular basis governing the abusive consumption of alcohol.
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