Open AccessE-Mentoring Female Underrepresented Public Health Student Researchers: Supporting a More Diverse Postpandemic Workforce
Author(s) -
Ponn P Mahayosnand,
Lavezza Zanders,
ZM Sabra,
Saman Essa,
Samiha Ahmed,
Diana Mora Bermejo,
Maryam Funmilayo,
D M Sabra,
Sheilamae Ablay
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
health security
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.705
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 2326-5108
pISSN - 2326-5094
DOI - 10.1089/hs.2021.0042
Subject(s) - underrepresented minority , workforce , covid-19 , ethnic group , medical education , pandemic , ethnically diverse , work (physics) , psychology , public relations , political science , medicine , engineering , mechanical engineering , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , law
Within higher education, underrepresented students continue to face inequalities and discrimination, with unique challenges surfacing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mentoring through formal or informal channels is one way to offer assistance to such students. During COVID-19 lockdowns, as classes and work moved online, mentoring also transitioned online. Electronic mentoring, or e-mentoring, was implemented formally by some universities and informally by independent researchers. This article describes the informal mentoring experiences of the lead author with 8 female student researchers, 6 of whom were mentored online. The students represented different racial and ethnic backgrounds, offering a collection of e-mentoring case studies during the pandemic. These independent field reports should not be assumed to represent any of the students' 6 universities, but they are a sample of what can be achieved by invested e-mentors. By sharing these anecdotal experiences, the authors call on all researchers of underrepresented groups to consider e-mentoring to support underrepresented student researchers and diversify the public health research field.