Stefanie Robel, Ph.D.

Landis Award for Outstanding Mentorship
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Image of Stefanie Robel
Institution
University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL

Dr. Robel’s approach to mentorship is centered around empowering mentees to learn to reach their brilliance. She has developed a framework that addresses three dimensions: People, Projects, and Productivity. Her creative approaches to mentorship have included drawing on elements of project management software to keep mentees productive and accountable, creating a process to teach mentees how to identify and address gaps in research and analyze the rigor of prior research, and establishing recurring retreats for trainees. Dr. Robel designed a training curriculum for undergraduates that exposes them as cohorts to a range of techniques used in her lab and provides opportunities to practice techniques and receive further guidance from lab members. In addition, her lab group holds a regular book club focusing on work-life balance, professional development, and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) topics. Dr. Robel has also served as a life coach and founded a company in the service of helping others. Dr. Robel’s commitment to holistic, well-rounded mentorship instills a sense of gratitude and a "pay it forward" attitude in her mentees.