Mentoring Women of Color As a Woman of Color in the Geosciences: Perspectives of a REU Near-Peer Mentor

The NSF REU program provides significant opportunities for undergraduate students to engage in intensive summer research programs in a variety of STEM fields. In a typical REU program, student participants are matched with faculty members at host universities. Over the past two summers, I have worked as a near-peer mentor for 12 students of color, 10 of them women, in their REU experience. Rather than serving as a scientific mentor, I had the opportunity to develop more holistic relationships with students, some that continue to this day. While there is an abundant amount of literature regarding the assessments of student experiences and mentor-mentee relationships in REU programs, much less is known about the role that a person of color who is closer to the REU participants in terms of age and academic status can play in the development of students in an REU program. This talk will focus on my experience as a near-peer mentor for the Water Quality in the Yucatan Peninsula, Earth Science REU program. My unique experience as a women of color geologist working with underrepresented students in STEM, will be explored by discussing the significant impact of a near-peer mentor in an experience that involves travel to another country, living & traveling together with the students, and filling a role that many students may not feel is possible with faculty mentors during their training. I will also discuss the impact of the students on me, and how these experiences have shaped my academic and career goals. While assessment data has been collected to measure what participants have gained from their experience in the program and will be included, this talk will use this data in conjunction with my experiences to address student growth and development as scientists and as whole people during their experience, something that is difficult to capture with quantitative assessment tools.