Postdoctoral Award for Exceptional Mentoring
Angie Lenard, 2024 Postdoc Mentoring Awardee
Angie Lenard is currently a postdoctoral scholar in the department of Biology working with Matthew Forister. She is an ecologist and evolutionary biologist with a broad interest in how organisms respond to anthropogenic change. Angie has a B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Biology and is currently researching pollinator biodiversity and landscape pesticide contamination of butterfly host plants in the California Central Valley. In the short time that Angie has been with the University, she has shown a natural talent for developing mentoring relationships with graduate and undergraduate students. She has already developed an independent research plan with an undergraduate student and will be helping that student prepare an application for the NSF GRFP this fall. In addition, Angie has two side projects with graduate students and is aiding them in planning and strategizing interdisciplinary work. She is truly motivated by seeing her mentees gain confidence and succeed.
Not only has Angie offered her time to mentor those around her, but she is also the current Operations Manager for the University of Nevada, Reno Postdoctoral Association. She looks forward to building community within the postdoc population at the University. Congratulations Angie on this outstanding award!
About the Postdoctoral Award for Exceptional Mentoring
The Graduate School’s Office of Postdoctoral Affairs is pleased to announce the University of Nevada, Reno’s Mentoring Award for Postdoctoral Scholars. Postdocs play a vital role in our research, teaching, and outreach missions at the University, and exceptional postdocs can play a transformative role in developing the next generation of researchers.
Nominations now open
The Office of Postdoctoral Affairs currently seeks nominations for exceptional postdocs who dedicate time, energy, and effort to mentoring undergraduate and graduate students. The Postdoctoral Award for Exceptional Mentoring recipient receives a one-time honorarium of $1,000 and a certificate of achievement presented at the “Honor the Best” ceremony.
Nominations are evaluated on the quality and impact of the postdoc’s mentoring contributions, so specific examples are encouraged with particular attention to the following attributes:
- Demonstrated record of mentoring and serving as a role model for students.
- Ability to balance excellence in mentoring with excellence in research and scholarship, including strengths in collaborative efforts, publication, and presentation records.
- Contribution toward supporting traditionally underrepresented groups within the postdoc’s discipline.
Nominations are due March 1, 2024 by 11:59 p.m.
Questions? Contact Loren Pietsch, Director of Postdoctoral Affairs, Graduate Recruitment and Diversity Initiatives at lpietsch@unr.edu.
Mohana Kuppuswamy Parthasarathy is an Optometrist from India. She is doing her postdoctoral fellowship with Michael Webster in the Department of Psychology. Her current research is focused on visual adaptation with multifocal contact lenses and medical images. Her areas of research interest include visual adaptation, perceptual learning, medical imaging and community health.
Daniel Haden is a physicist who earned his degree from the University of Nebraska in the generation of x-ray radiation from short-pulse lasers. His research interests include high-intensity lasers, computational physics and high energy density physics. Currently, Daniel is researching electron-ion equilibration in warm-dense-matter in a postdoctoral fellowship under the supervision of Thomas White in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.