Invisible contributions

Amani Nuru-Jeter

The most important thing I bring to my role as a Core Advisor is my passion for mentoring and for cultivating and helping to create an environment where ALL faculty can thrive. I have had good mentoring, bad mentoring, and at times no mentoring; and have both experienced and witnessed the inequities in mentoring among faculty in higher education which fuels my commitment to ensuring that faculty have what they need to develop into their full potential, particularly women, faculty of color, and women faculty of color. I have experience mentoring across the academic pipeline from students, to junior and mid-career faculty both in formal and informal capacities, and am excited to partner with OFEW to help support the mentoring needs of my UCB colleagues.

Rodrigo Almeida

I have been on the Berkeley faculty since 2006 and currently serve as Division Chair in my department (ESPM). I came to the US for my PhD, and I was not confident I belonged or fit anywhere until well past tenure; great mentors were instrumental in that journey.

Matthew Welch

When I started at Berkeley my mentoring relationships were mainly informal and my mentors were junior faculty friends in my department as well as senior faculty with whom I shared research interests. However, I now see that new faculty can benefit from a broader spectrum of mentoring and advising relationships.

Al-An deSouza

I bring extensive experience of mentoring underrepresented students and junior faculty, from the point of hire through their academic careers. My emphasis is on intersections between race, gender, sexuality, disability and class, and how these might enable possibilities for research and self-development, as well as how they are used as constraints by institutions.

Lok Siu

Experience matters, but listening is paramount when it comes to mentoring. As a woman of color and a first generation scholar, I have more than 20 years of experience navigating complex institutions like UC Berkeley and the academy, more generally. I bring my own insights, but I am most interested in helping colleagues define their goals, develop strategies, build community, and achieve a sense of belonging and fulfillment.

Laura Kray

As someone who has benefited enormously throughout my 25-year career from mentors who have been extremely committed to my career development, I am eager to “pay it forward.” I am proud to have mentored undergraduate and graduate students, post-docs, junior and mid-career faculty. As chair of the Management of Organizations group at Haas, I have developed both formal and informal channels for supporting the diverse needs of our community. My approach to mentoring is flexible in the sense that I tailor it to the specific needs of individual mentees. I appreciate that each person’s journey is unique and therefore a one-size-fits-all approach is insufficient. Upon establishing a trust-based relationship with mentees, I share stories about my own experiences, good (and bad) advice that I have received along the way, and observations about broader trends in academia and beyond. Working with mentees, we jointly discover new solutions to old problems and old solutions to new problems.

Kris Gutiérrez

I believe mentoring the next generation of scholars, particularly first generation faculty and students, is one of the most important responsibilities and commitments I have. I have had the privilege of mentoring and apprenticing both students (graduate, undergraduate, and postdocs) and faculty (particularly early and mid-career faculty) at my institutions and in professional arenas since I was an early career scholar myself. Presently, I am also a mentor for dissertation, postdoctoral, and mid-career fellows for the National Academy of Education & the Spencer Foundation.

Lisa García Bedolla

As a core advisory I bring my twenty years of experience navigating the UC system as a woman of color. I have expertise in understanding complex institutions and ensuring that your needs are met within those institutions. When mentoring junior faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates I have focused on helping them to find their voice, their joy, and the career path that best meets their professional and personal needs.

Serena Chen

I have served as a primary mentor for graduate students for nearly 25 years. These graduate students have come from very diverse backgrounds, with equally diverse current circumstances, and a broad range of strengths, interests, and career goals. Over the years, I have also mentored and regularly offered advice to junior (and sometimes) senior colleagues. My approach to mentoring/advising is direct and pragmatic, but also compassionate.