Community outreach

Young scientists can be enthusiastic, ambitious and full of ideas — but they sometimes lack connections to the greater community, especially their senior colleagues. Because many young researchers in my field, computational biology, have talked about getting more connected, I organized a student council for the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB).

That led to the society's first mentorship scheme, launched this June at its annual meeting in Detroit, Michigan. About 30 students met with eight mentors, most of whom were members of the ISCB board of directors. The opportunity to talk one-on-one or in very small groups with a leading scientist about career options, research and networking was invaluable to students and postdocs early in their careers. The turn-out of both mentors and students was lower than we had hoped, but all students who took part said they had an inspiring time. Mentors looking to fill postdoc positions may also have found interesting candidates.

We have learned important lessons and will establish new strategies to raise awareness and sort out logistics for our next effort, before ISCB 2006.

Planning such events is not without obstacles. We have faced opposition from some scientists who believe that students should focus only on the academic aspects of their research. There has been some turnover in council membership, as students joined with great enthusiasm, only for their commitment to fade away over time. This is to be expected, given the nature of the pre- and postdoctoral process, with important deadlines to be met. Engaging with the bioinformatics community has also been a challenge at times, especially in filling our database or getting people to participate in our occasional surveys.

But we plan to expand on this event at our next, an international symposium on 28 September in Madrid. This is targeted at young researchers who are keen to develop their research communication skills, meet like-minded colleagues, network with accomplished scientists and learn about career opportunities in Europe and globally.

We're hoping that advertising will get more students and mentors to take part — and make young computational biologists feel more connected, both to each another and to the field as a whole.

→ http://www.iscbsc.org