Caltech Connection Mentorship Opportunity

Caltech Connection is a near-peer mentoring program where Caltech/JPL graduate students and postdocs serve as mentors to STEM students from local community colleges (as well as some minority-serving 4-year institutions with limited research opportunities).

The program runs from November 2026-May 2027. We ask that mentor-mentee pairs meet on a bi-weekly basis, at a minimum. Pairs are welcome to meet more often if their schedules allow. Typically mentees start off by selecting a scientific topic of interest and work through a literature review. Throughout the academic year, mentees may have the opportunity to shadow or work alongside their mentors in the lab or on a computational project. At the end of the program in late May, the mentees present their work at a poster session we host on campus. 

Caltech grad students and postdocs hone their mentoring and science communication skills and support the local STEM community, particularly students who don't have access to top tier resources. 

Scott will hold an Information Session for prospective mentors on Thursday, September 17 at 1 pm via Zoom. Anyone interested in participating can fill out this Interest Form (form will close on Sept 11), and I will send along the Zoom link and additional details. 

If folks know already that they definitely want to be a Caltech Connection mentor, they can officially sign-up by filling out this Mentor Sign-up Form. We ask all mentors to upload a short video describing their background and research interest, which is eventually shared with the selected mentees to help us pair each mentor with a mentee.

More details can be found at www.connection.caltech.edu or feel free to email [email protected] or [email protected] with any questions.