Mentee Eric Tablante - Living the professional dream

Eric Tablante entered the CCSF Biosciences program after experiencing an intense food allergy abroad. All his life, Eric has had food allergies. After many years of dealing with these allergies by avoiding foods and carrying an epi-pen, Eric thought, "Shouldn't there be a better way?” He was determined to transition from patient to researcher. He hoped he could one day find a way to stop similar allergies in their tracks.

Eric has his B.S. in Business Management and a B.A. in French. He has also worked in a variety of retail positions with a diversity of experiences. Yet, prior to CCSF, he didn’t have any experience in a biology research lab. After speaking with a few friends who had taken courses in the CCSF Biosciences program, Eric was hooked. He thought that  the program would be one of the fastest ways to begin a career in biology research.

Eric was particularly excited when he learned that Sil Lab at UCSF was taking interns. The Sil Lab studies a disease-causing fungus known as Histoplasma capsulatum. In particular, they look at how this fungus interacts with the mammalian immune system. Eric saw working in the Sil Lab as a fantastic opportunity to get real experience with immunology research. He jumped at the possibility to join.

Eric’s excitement impressed Sil Lab graduate student and future mentor, Allison Cohen. She gladly took Eric on as a mentee after their initial interview. Eric set to work helping Allison use a ground-breaking technology called “CRISPR.” They used CRISPR to make precise changes to DNA sequences in immune cells. The goal was to determine how these changes impacted the cell’s responses to Histoplasma capsulatum.

While working in the lab with Allison, Eric says he was “living his professional dream.” He points out that it felt amazing to be on “the other side of the glass.” He was no longer a patient. Instead, he was doing work that could possibly advance medical practice.

When the pandemic put physical lab work on pause in mid March, Eric was initially disappointed that he would not be able to continue his research. However, Allison and the Biosciences program kept Eric very busy.

While taking online courses, Eric stayed connected with Allison and the lab. As you’ll learn below, Allison’s mentoring skills helped the two of them make great strides even though she was now mentoring at a distance.

Mentor Allison Cohen - Setting concrete expectations, giving clear feedback, and keeping lines of communication open for successful mentoring from a distance

Mentor and Sil Lab graduate student, Alison Cohen, took on Eric as her intern after participating in the UCSF-CCSF TRAIN-UP workshop series, a requirement for the Inclusive Mentoring Fellows Program. This program teaches researchers practical techniques they can use to be better mentors. 

Allison participated in the program for two main reasons: 

1. To learn to be a better mentor to her future trainees. 

2. To learn what skills to look for in her own future mentors.

Some of the most important things Allison learned through the TRAIN-UP workshops were to:

• Set concrete expectations for trainees

• Provide clear feedback

• Be open to communication

Prior to the pandemic, Allison laid our concrete goals for Eric’s research. After initial discussions about Eric’s interests, Allison and Eric wrote down precisely what techniques and experiments Eric would cover during the internship. Later, they created explicit timelines for Eric’s weeks in the lab.

These very structured expectations provided Eric with reasonable goals. They also created a foundation upon which he could learn from Allison. Knowing exactly what they were aiming for, Allison could provide specific, corrective feedback. Eric could also ask precise questions about his tasks. While these questions were thought-provoking, they fell within a reasonable structure. This enabled Allison to direct Eric to the appropriate resources. It kept Eric from getting lost in the vast ocean of biological knowledge.

Once the pandemic hit, Allison’s training helped her become a successful mentor from a distance. She quickly established a weekly video meeting with Eric and, together, they came up with a series of concrete goals that Eric could accomplish at home.

Goals for a research internship at home

To begin, Allison knew that biologists use many software tools. Such tools help biologists design, execute, and analyze experiments. It would have been difficult for Allison to set aside time to teach these tools in the lab. Yet, the pandemic gave her the opportunity to switch focus. She set Eric to work learning software tools useful for any future CRISPR and molecular biology experiments. She gave Eric specific tasks each week and they walked through his progress at their weekly meetings. 

Importantly, Allison gave Eric control over these meetings. She enabled him to drive their conversations by having him write their agendas. Later, Allison used screen-sharing tools to give Eric in-depth help with the software.

Similar to software skills, mentors don’t often have time to teach mentees transferable skills. These are things such as communication, time-management, and leadership. They are skills that will help you excel in any career. They take just as much time and effort to develop as any experimental technique.

Allison recognized that the pandemic afforded her time to train Eric in some transferable skills. In particular, she focused on boosting his communication skills. It’s taken for granted that scientists will figure out how to effectively communicate the results of their work. Yet, there is rarely focused presentation training at any level of scientific education. Allison, thus made it her goal to work with Eric to hone his presentation abilities. She enabled him to create a fantastic research presentation for an end of the semester project.

Practically, this meant Allison took time to do a focused review of Eric’s presentation. She offered him guidance on how to streamline his messaging and make clear points. The end result can be found here. Indeed, Allison’s focus on setting expectations shines through the presentation. These expectations create a clear, concise framework that makes the presentation easy to follow and understand.

Unexpected opportunities afforded by mentoring at a distance

Mentoring at a distance is challenging. Both Allison and Eric point out that meetings can be difficult over video. This is especially true if you have many such meetings throughout the day. Yet, both were able to focus on developing skills that will be essential to their future careers. Eric is now far more proficient in essential software and presentation skills. Allison has learned the importance of shifting expectations and adapting to mentee needs. Both are convinced that this experience has benefited them greatly despite the crisis.

Learn more about the CCSF-UCSF Inclusive Mentoring Fellows 2020 Cohort here and how UCSF is working with the CCSF Biotechnology program to build training pathways for researchers to counter inequity in science here.