How do faculty and staff become more effective mentors to their research trainees? One way is by participating in our Advancing Research Mentoring Practice (ARMP) training, which uses the evidence-based Entering Mentoring curriculum.
Facilitators like Darcie Moore make these trainings possible. All facilitators are experienced mentors who have completed our Entering Mentoring Facilitator Training—and each one brings a unique perspective to the role. We asked Dr. Moore about her background and experience as an ARMP facilitator.
Tell us about your role and the work you do at UW–Madison.
I am an associate professor in the Department of Neuroscience. My lab studies regeneration of the central nervous system. I mentor undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and research interns in my lab.
Tell us a little about yourself.
I actually did not start as a scientist. I trained as a classical singer since 10 years old, and have a bachelor’s and masters in music from the Cleveland Institute of Music at Case Western Reserve. After performing professionally for a few years, I went back to school to obtain my masters in science at Colorado State in biomedical sciences, with a neurobiology emphasis. I obtained my PhD at the University of Miami in Miami, Florida, in the lab of Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg (now at Stanford) working on axon regeneration of the optic nerve. I did my postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. Dr. Sebastian Jessberger at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich in Zurich in Switzerland before being recruited to UW–Madison as an assistant professor.
Outside of work, I still enjoy making music, singing and playing the piano. I enjoy dancing, hiking, reading, cross-country skiing, and visiting new places. My husband and I have a daughter (13) and son (10), as well as a miniature Australian shepherd (12). A fun fact about me is that I gentled and clicker-trained my wild mustang I adopted from the Bureau of Land Management.
How long have you been a mentor? How did you first get started?
Even beginning in my PhD, I had undergraduates that I mentored and trained. In my postdoc, I mentored and trained masters students.
How long have you been facilitating ARMP?
I started facilitating ARMP with Jyoti Watters in 2021.
Tell us about your mentoring successes.
Seeing my mentees go on to pursue their dreams successfully is my measure for mentoring success.
How do you apply the skills and knowledge from ARMP into your mentoring practice?
I generally apply many aspects of ARMP to my mentoring, such as using a compact, for example. However, I feel like it is particularly in my individual interactions with my mentees where I can really use and apply my skills from ARMP.
What do you enjoy most about facilitating ARMP?
Every time I facilitate ARMP, I get to review and remind myself of different aspects of mentoring to consider. I feel like I take something back to my lab with me from discussions with each cohort. I enjoy how each group we work with has its own dynamic and areas where discussion naturally occurs.
What do you consider to be the biggest benefits of participating in ARMP?
I specifically perform facilitations for new assistant professors, because I feel like this is the time where you are starting to think about how you want to set up your lab and establish the routines and guidelines for how your lab will work over the years. I think for the new faculty coming in, having someone help create a structure at the beginning is a great benefit.
I also think hearing other people’s struggles with or questions about different mentor/mentee relationships makes faculty feel like they are part of a community. One is never “done” with ARMP, and so having a network to discuss new challenges removes some of the intimidation of running a lab.
Learn more about ARMP and how you can get involved.