Rice: Unconventional Wisdom
Office of Research Office of Research

Postdoctoral Mentoring Activities

As many of you are aware, NSF has put in place a new requirement that PIs explicitly detail mentoring activities they will provide for any postdocs requested on NSF awards. The Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies has several ongoing activities at Rice specifically designed to mentor postdocs and those activities are listed below. Should you have any questions on the specific activities, please contact Paula Sanders, Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.

Currently offered

  • Postdoctoral Career Development activities at BCM available to Rice Postdocs
  • Library Resources for Ph.D. Students and Post Docs
  • NSF grant-writing workshop (fall)
  • NIH grant-writing workshop (fall)
  • NEH/ACLS/Mellon grant-writing workshop (fall)
  • Teaching workshop for current & future teachers (2x/month)
  • Postdoc lunches (2x/month--one time generally work/life balance issue; other time generally professional dvlp. issue)
  • Job market (for postdocs and graduate students) workshop (separate for Eng & NatSci, SocSci, Humanities)
  • Conflict resolution (spring)
  • Entrepreneurship club (full academic year)
  • A course title "Teaching Engineering" taught by Professor James Young is designed to give students who plan on academic positions the teaching skills necessary to hit the ground running and to be able to spend more time on research. Postdocs are welcome to audit this class. More information can be found at ENGI 501: Teaching Engineering
  • CHEM 570 Nanotechnology for Teachers - this class links introductory IPC, high school Chemistry and Physics curriculum to Nanotechnology with applications in Enviromental and Biological Sciences

Example Postdoctoral Mentoring Plans

  • Below are examples of what one might put in a postdoctoral mentoring plan. We will try to continually update these and post some from successful proposals.
  • Sample Postdoctoral Mentoring Plan

Planned for introduction next academic year

  • NSF CAREER workshop (spring)
  • Responsible Conduct of Research training program
  • Proposal development and peer review workshops (4-10 weeks as needed)

One-time, possibly to be offered annually or every other year in the future

  • Entrepreneurship workshop (day-long)