Mentoring in the Metzger Lab

Our lab studies how new molecular functions arise and evolve. Doing that well depends on the people doing the work, so mentoring is not separate from the science, it is part of how the science gets done.

I try to build a lab where curiosity, independence, and rigor are the norm rather than the exception. That means I want to know how your experiments and analyses are actually going, not just whether they are done. I want to know what you are learning, where you are stuck, and what you are excited about.

In practice, this looks like regular one-on-one meetings that you lead, weekly lab meetings built around presentations, journal clubs, and open discussion, and a habit of giving direct, specific feedback in both directions. I expect a genuine attempt at a problem before you come to me with it. Once you have made that attempt, I would rather you ask directly than stay stuck without saying so. My job is to be genuinely available and to follow through, to give you enough structure that things do not get lost, and enough room that the work becomes yours.

Everyone is welcome in the lab, and harassment or bullying of any kind is not tolerated.

Every stage of training, from an undergraduate's first project in the lab through a postdoctoral fellowship, comes with a different balance of guidance and independence. I try to calibrate that individually rather than apply one template to everyone. The questions we ask are often ones nobody has answered yet, and pushing into that kind of new territory takes real effort. It is also genuinely enjoyable, and the lab does not take itself too seriously along the way. There are lab t-shirts, a growing colony of stuffed yeast cells, small dinosaurs that turn up hidden around the lab, and no shortage of Jurassic Park references. If you are considering joining the lab and want to know more about how we work day to day, I am happy to talk about it, or to share the longer mentoring document we give to new lab members.

Brian Metzger, Principal Investigator