Lori Setton
Mary Milus Yoh and Harold L. Yoh Jr. Bass
Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering
On any given day, engineering professor Lori Setton can be found talking in the halls, laboratory, or classroom with graduate students. What's unusual about this is that only a handful of the students will be under Setton's supervision, and they're not always talking about biomedical research. Rather, they might be discussing personal growth and career planning or how to balance career choices with family considerations.
Setton's dedication to guiding graduate students has earned her a Dean's Award for Excellence in Mentoring. Offered for the first time by the Graduate School, the award recognizes outstanding mentoring in the graduate program and highlights some of the characteristics of good mentoring.
Setton, who was recently named the Mary Milus Yoh and Harold L. Yoh Jr. Bass Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, said that time spent with graduate students is the most educational and enjoyable part of her faculty experience. “I have great respect for the different experiences and vantage points that students bring to their graduate education,” Setton said. “I appreciate how their different talents and personalities can enhance their experience but also present distinctly different challenges. When I stop and listen to them, and give them the freedom to openly think and speak, we all learn and grow from each other.”
Students say they value Setton's advice on matters outside of their research and credit her with improving their teaching, writing, communications, and public speaking skills. “Looking back, I believe that Lori gave her students opportunity to learn everything important for their future careers in different areas,” wrote one graduate student in nominating Setton for the honor. “This includes not only experience in doing research, writing, and presenting but also skills in how to interact with other people and to create and maintain a great working environment with mutual respect and sincere interest in everyone's achievements.”
Nearly half of the graduate students in the biomedical engineering department are women, but there are only a handful of female faculty to mentor them. Many of the students end up coming to Setton for guidance. “I think I've served as a designated but also 'ad hoc' mentor to many of the female graduate students that have passed through the department by connecting with some of the personal issues that they face in their professional development,” Setton said. The Pratt School has recently recruited more female faculty. “I believe that the increasing number of successful female faculty in the Pratt School to serve as mentors will communicate to female students that they, too, can define their own path to success and become achievers and leaders in their fields,” Setton said.
Setton's commitment to mentoring comes from the assistance she received as a graduate student and a young faculty member. In particular, she cited graduate school mentors at Columbia University and biomedical engineering professor Robert Hochmuth at Duke. “These relationships have been a great benefit to me both professionally and personally, and I feel that I continue to grow and learn from them to this day,” she said.
In her laboratory, Setton's research focuses on the degeneration and repair of soft tissue in the musculoskeletal system. She oversees seven master's degree and Ph.D. students. The road to a graduate degree can be a difficult one, and the graduate students say the encouragement Setton gives them is important in keeping them going. “It seems that this early attention she gives each of us provided more experienced students with the sense that they were moving forward and not starting over,” wrote one student in nominating Setton for the mentoring award. “As each graduate student progresses, Lori ensures that they present at national meetings and write peer-reviewed journal articles. These activities are essential to the development of graduate students in our field.”
One important aspect of mentoring students, Setton said, is helping them with difficult decisions, such as a change of dissertation or even field of study. “Graduate students may enter their studies with little understanding of what they've committed to,” Setton said. “Students are encouraged to focus on the depth and details of their research, although this also needs to be a time for broader learning. Students can easily lose sight of where they want to be five to ten years from now and may find it difficult to stand back and make the big changes necessary to get them where they want to be. “Graduate school is often the best time and place to enact those changes, so I may support students to explore change by doing their 'research' and 'interviewing' as many relevant professionals and graduate students as possible..We all grow and learn through change, and I haven't yet seen a student regret the changes that they've embraced while here.”
-Eileen Kuo
Reprinted from Dialogue (May 7, 2004) with permission from Duke News Service.