Our team has been working together since 2016 to foster more productive and effective lab environments with a focus on biotechnology community college student interns. We began with creation of a comprehensive training program for internship mentors who wish to counter inequities in the lab. 

With our first NSF Advanced Technology Education (ATE) grant (2018-2021, DUE #1801186, 1800998) we:

• Further improved our mentor training which, to date, has trained 500+ research scientists in tools to operationalize effective evidence-based practices in the lab.

• Developed a parallel training for community college students to navigate barriers to to their success in the workplace, in which 100+ biotechnology community college students have participated. 

• Published a framework for effective bioscience workplace practices in academic labs.

• Created a novel CCSF-UCSF Mentoring Fellows program, in which UCSF internship research mentors are coached as they apply effective workplace practices while mentoring CCSF interns.

With our second Grant (2021-2025, DUE #2055735, 2055309) we: 

• Translated our trainings for biotechnology community college students and mentor-managers from an academia to an industry setting and online platforms

• Disseminated those trainings nationwide to community college students and biotech/bioscience mentor-managers through online platforms to foster the knowledge & skills needed to operationalize effective workplace practices and reduce barriers for community college students in the biotech workplace.

• Our team has now trained over 1,500 scientists from over 150 academic, government & industry organizations, and our mentor-manager training has been sustainably embedded as a biannual training series offered at UCSF.

• Our team has trained over 350 students from over 30 community colleges in Workplace Navigation. 

• Implementation of Workplace Navigation tools and strategies resulted in immediate and long-term positive impacts on community college students, including high levels of trust, communication, and expectation clarity between interns and their internship mentors/supervisors. Additionally, internship mentors/supervisors offered high levels of positive recommendations and interest in hosting future interns. 

• 95% of community college alumni with biotech work experience surveyed reported that the Workplace Navigation training has been very important or critical to their career success. 

With our third Grant (2025-2028, DUE #2500518, 2500519) we will: 

• Have joined with MiraCosta Community College and InnovATEBIO to build a national Workplace Navigation Hub to disseminate Workplace Navigation and Work Based Learning resources, tools, and trainings.

• Build out, assess, and iteratively improve asynchronous Workplace Navigation Training for community college students and alumni to empower themselves in the workplace.

• Implement and embed that training within 15 community college technical education and work based learning programs from across 10 states and 6 technical disciplines. This will include opportunities for students to practice workplace navigation skills with support and coaching during work based learning experiences.

• Create guidelines and communities of practice for effective implementation of Workplace Navigation Training in community college technical education and work-based learning programs to support all students.