For the 2015-2016 year, I continued working at the Fairbanks School of Public Health on the Your Life. Your Story. project through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP). Because we adopted a group-mentoring model, some mentors needed more guidance than others and some assumed more responsibilities than others. A mentor manager was necessary to keep a watchful eye on mentors because Dr. Bigatti and Dr. Medina could not be expected to take the necessary time to ensure that mentors live up to the challenge. I met with the mentors on a monthly basis to check in, to troubleshoot any issues with the teens, and to plan outings with the teens. It was an intense challenge for me to coordinate the schedules of so many busy, dynamic college students and teenagers. 

Because only 12 mentors have actually gone through the program, there are not yet enough data to produce statistically significant results at this time. However, I entered all the survey data into SPSS for the future. I laid the groundwork for future analysis of the traits of a good mentor through survey data, observations, and a number of other measures to aid in recruitment for future years of the YLYS program. This research will focus on what makes a good mentor, e.g. do outgoing mentors have better follow-up with mentees, or do senior status mentors have less time to devote to mentees, etc.? 

My UROP poster focused on evaluating the training program I developed and executed during my LHSI and MURI experiences. We received expert feedback from grant committees on how to improve the mentor training. My task has been to incorporate those changes and continue to improve the program year to year.