Leadership and Mentorship for Career Advancement and Tenure

New Investigator Bootcamp Webinar Series

Navigating the path to career advancement and tenure can be complex, especially for junior faculty and early-career professionals. Join us for an insightful webinar, Leadership and Mentorship for Career Advancement and Tenure, where experts will share strategies for leveraging mentorship resources both within and outside your institution. Learn how to effectively balance the demands of teaching, service, and research, and discover the keys to preparing a compelling tenure promotion package. This session will also cover critical timing for tenure applications, strategies for demonstrating leadership early in your career, and the ways your personal leadership style influences your management approach. In addition, participants will gain a better understanding of how the tenure process works at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Whether you’re preparing for tenure or looking to enhance your leadership skills, this webinar offers valuable tools and insights to guide your journey.

KEYNOTE AND PLENARY SPEAKERS

Humphrey Yao, PhD

Dr. Humphrey Hung-Chang Yao is the Senior Principal Investigator of Reproductive Developmental Biology Group at National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences or NIEHS, a branch institute of NIH in the U.S.A. He received his Ph.D. in reproductive biology in 1999 at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and completed a postdoctoral training in developmental biology at Duke University Medical Center in 2002. Dr. Yao started his independent faculty position in the Department of Comparative Biosciences at University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in 2003 and was promoted to tenured Associate Professor in 2009. In 2010, Dr. Yao was recruited to NIEHS/NIH as the Principal Investigator to lead the Reproductive Developmental Biology Group with research focus on sexual differentiation and reproductive organ formation and the environmental impacts on these processes. He was promoted to Senior Investigator in 2018.

Jodi Flaws, PhD

Jodi A. Flaws is a Professor of Comparative Biosciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She received a B.S. in Biology from St. Xavier University, a M.S. in Biology from Loyola University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of Arizona. Following completion of the Ph.D. degree, Dr. Flaws performed postdoctoral research at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland. Following postdoctoral training, Dr. Flaws accepted an Assistant Professor position at the University of Maryland, where she subsequently was promoted to Associate Professor.  In 2006, Dr. Flaws accepted a position as Professor of Comparative Biosciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Flaws’ research program focuses on determining the mechanisms by which environmental chemicals affect the development and function of the ovary and female reproductive system.

Ripla Arora, PhD

Dr. Ripla Arora is an Associate Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Biology and the Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering at Michigan State University. She received her PhD in 2012 in Genetics and Development at Columbia University and completed her postdoctoral training in Reproductive and Developmental Biology at the University of California, San Francisco in 2017. Dr. Arora started her independent faculty position at Michigan State University in 2017 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2023. Her lab’s research focuses on uncovering 3D structure-based mechanisms that guide both development of the uterus and early embryo-uterine interactions for implantation and pregnancy success.

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