Maggie and Grainne’s mentor relationship started a year-and-a-half ago when Grainne was a freshman student at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Since then, they have each grown professionally and accomplished many research milestones including completing a pilot study, presenting at a national conference, and drafting research publications.
Their mentoring relationship started in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic meaning the majority of their time spent working together was online. One thing that they both have learned over that year and a half was that communication can make a huge impact, especially between mentors and mentees.
Maggie Bushman has been on the SMAHRTeam since 2017 and has been mentoring undergraduate interns for two years. Grainne is a research intern and currently a sophomore undergraduate student.
“I played a lot of sports growing up so I always had some kind of, like, mentorship figure in my life, whether that was like a coach, a teacher, or like a fellow teammate,” explained Maggie. “Those relationships really taught me a lot about myself and just life in general. I always wanted to kind of, in my career, pass that on to someone else and be a mentor to someone else.”
Maggie went on to explain that she enjoys that mentoring is a cycle. “Everyone starts as a mentee in some capacity, but from that mentoring relationship that can gain skills to then mentor someone else, which I think is really cool,” she said.
Maggie has been mentoring SMAHRT interns for about two years. In that amount of time she has been able to experience how rewarding it is to watch her interns grow as people and professionals.
“It’s always bittersweet when they move on and graduate and go on to their own careers, but it’s also really exciting to kind of see where they end up and watch them follow their passions as well.”
One of Grainne’s favorite aspects of SMAHRT’s mentorship structure is that you get to work with everyone as a mentor including Dr. Megan Moreno, SMAHRT’s principal investigator. Day-to-day, Grainne works primarily with Maggie as a mentor.
“That consists of checking in weekly and having Maggie as a resource and asking questions whenever they arise. She also oversees all of the work I do while also working along with me,” explained Grainne. “[As an intern] you do have seniority, but you also get to work directly with your mentors instead of just having someone as your boss.”
“I’ve worked with Grainne for about a year and a half now and its been absolutely amazing to watch her grow,” said Maggie. Grainne joined the SMAHRTeam her freshman year as a communications and research intern. “This was the first time that I had an intern that was interested in both so I was pretty nervous, but Grainne has been such a joy to work with because she is just so eager to learn and asks really meaningful questions,” explained Maggie. “It’s been amazing to see her confidence grow and to watch her take on more research projects and I can’t wait to see where she goes from here.”
When asked to pick reflect on her favorite memory from the last year and a half, Grainne explained that a highlight was when she shifted her work from communications to more research focused work. She got to work with so many different people while keeping Maggie as her primary mentor.
“I think that being both a mentor and a mentee has helped to start to eliminate that little bit of imposter syndrome that I think always happens whenever you are going into a new area where so many people are experts,” said Grainne. “I think being a mentor through summer research scholars helped me with that, but also as a mentee I am constantly reminded that my work that I’m doing does matter and I know what I’m doing.”
“The whole concept of SMAHRT’s flat hierarchy is something that’s really helped me grow too,” said Grainne. This is a unique element of SMAHRT because traditionally in research undergraduate work can be underappreciated.
“I constantly feel valued and that’s something I’m very lucky to have experienced as a mentee. That’s something that in the future I’m going to look for now that I know it does exist and it’s something that I want,” said Grainne.
Grainne has also been able to step out of her comfort zone. Last month she presented her work at the PRISM Health Symposium in California.
“I’m always encouraged to try new things which is very nice to have and it’s definitely something that’s allowed me to grow overall,” explained Grainne.
“Communication. That’s been huge this semester especially when things have been going from online to in-person again. I’ve just learned that at the end of the day everyone is human and we can only handle so much and that’s respected too. Nobody knows what you are going through unless you are communicating it and I can defiantly say that I was taught and able to model this from what I’ve seen Maggie and the other mentors do,” explained Grainne.
“Communication is something that I really value now. I think it will be something in the future when I am a mentor that I will embody.”