Postdoctoral scholars Samantha Shepherd and James Hutchison are helping shape a better future for science by welcoming local students to the labs at Yale’s West Campus.
Next gen Yale mentors pay it forward for better science, and a greater New Haven
Postdoctoral scholars James Hutchison and Samantha Shepherd.
By Jon Atherton
Part guide, part advisor, part therapist – a good mentor can make all the difference in a science career, especially during the early undergrad years.
Demystify the bewildering academic landscape, mentors bridge gaps in informal job skills like networking and help mentees navigate complex political systems.
But becoming a mentor happens more through trial and error than formal training. Time and resources need to be managed in a system known as much for short-term results as for the long-term benefit of nurturing scientists.
For Samantha Shepherd and James Hutchison, two post-doctoral scholars at Yale’s West Campus, providing intergenerational support is a logical way to help not just mentor and mentee, but also to shape a better future for science.
The pair are part of a group of trainees providing enthusiastic mentorship to undergrad students at Yale and to a growing number of summer interns experiencing West Campus labs as part of the New Haven Promise program.
Alongside administration colleagues, Hutchinson and Shepherd now guide and shape an ambitious effort with a consistent aim: to open up West Campus science labs to undergrad students from all backgrounds throughout Greater New Haven.
The program has hosted around 30 Promise scholars since its inception at the West Campus in 2020.
And this summer the pair are planning a round of workshops for New Haven Promise scholars to demystify the broad variety of scientific career paths and help students learn how to access resources at other universities.
“On a personal note, I just wouldn’t be here today, engaged in science, without the support of mentors along the way,” begins Shepherd, who is in year three of a postdoc fellowship in the Lab of Kallol Gupta at the Yale Nanobiology Institute.
During undergraduate studies at Brandeis University Shepherd worked part time as a lab tech, preparing fruit fly samples for the scientists in the lab. She enjoyed the work and learned about research “without doing any.”
“Academia is a space that needed to be demystified for me by mentors,” says Shepherd. “Without their support I wouldn’t have taken the next step in my career – doing something that I really enjoy!”
“The people there made me aware that I could join a lab if I wanted to do research. So I joined a lab doing mathematical modeling of zebra fish skin cell patterning. Then I transitioned from math into biology, and my mentors explained that I could apply for grad school to get a PhD. I had a great time, mostly thanks to advisors who helped me at every step, demystifying the complexity of the academic system.”
“They explained it all to me, and now I want to be able to be that for other people – to provide that knowledge.”
With the same desire to pay it forward, Hutchison’s experience has been similar.
“I’m a first-generation college student and had no idea what academia was like and how it functions,” he says. “The parlance and language of academia can be a real roadblock early on, but thankfully I had mentors willing to explain it to me. I’m motivated to pay that forward, but as someone aspiring to be a faculty member, it’s important for me to have a good grasp of how to train people from all backgrounds. That’s why I love the New Haven Promise program, because I get to mentor students like the one I was.”
“I’m a firm believer that a university should do good work in its local city and state, so partnering with Promise is the perfect way to engage locally in what we do here on campus.”
Full of promise. Colleagues gather at Yale’s West Campus.
Hutchison, a postdoc in the lab of Mark Lemmon at the Yale Cancer Biology Institute, has been mentoring New Haven Promise students since the program began at West Campus.
“As a prestigious university, Yale students come from around the world, but it’s important that we’re also engaged intentionally and purposefully here in Greater New Haven,” says Hutchison. “I was a young kid with plenty of bravado. I started working in a grocery store and by chance was given an opportunity to take an intern position in a lab. I became engrossed in how research worked and was able to do a post-baccalaureate internship at the NIH. The initial research opportunity at undergrad really sets the stage for everything that comes after.”
People aren’t necessarily born into being scientists, they need encouragement and training, says Shepherd.
“Sometimes as trained scientists we come to think that science is innate in us – someone is either a good scientist or a good candidate to be a scientist, or not a good candidate to be a scientist,” she says. “But what makes a good scientist isn’t quite so intrinsic. I view science to be as trainable as anything else. If I want to be a good runner I could run more. If I want someone to become a good scientist, I enable them to do more science.”
“The development of good scientists is not a practice of finding people who can be good scientists, but rather training people who are excited to be scientists.”
“I want to be in a position where I’m not just looking for people who exist with the skill sets that I want. I want to be able to train young students who come in with less background, but full of questions and new ideas, with different perspectives. That forces me to remain open and creative. The act of training students in science makes me a better scientist.”
As a postdoc Hutchison acknowledges academia’s sink or swim reputation and understands the realities and constraints that go along with that.
“My academic future hinges on publishing and securing funding. But as a postdoc I also think it’s critical to inspire people to like science, and undergrads are the true proving ground.”
Selfishly, Hutchison wants all his trainees to become scientists.
“I work purposefully to inspire that spark and realization that this is a job that is driven by passion. There’s a lot of intellectual freedom and joy to be had and I always try to highlight that. Whenever a mentee finds something unique, even a relatively minor finding in the lab, I’ll say ‘hey, you’ve just learned something that no one else on the planet knows’. We try to capture that feeling, that excitement, that is the best part of the job. That helps me as postdoc not to become jaded.”
“To see people get really excited about science over and over, it brings me a lot of personal joy.”
Sam Shepherd with New Haven Promise scholars in 2025.
Shepherd’s motivation also goes beyond the papers she’s currently writing.
“I’m motivated to be a mentor by what can happen in the future. I practice mentorship because I want other scientists to be mentors. I see it [mentorship] as a way to give back to the community here in West Haven or New Haven, but also to give back to the scientific community, even if it doesn’t have a direct benefit to me today.
The mutual benefits are strategic and practical, she says.
“I don’t think the best science happens in individualist environments. I’m an interdisciplinary scientist. I went from an exclusive focus on physical chemistry to looking at proteins with a strong theoretical component, and now I’m in a cell biology lab. Exploring these spaces between fields brings home to me how valuable collaboration and mentorship is to the work. Publishing papers is one piece, but the bigger picture is in knowing how our world works and how we can make the world better.”
“As scientists we need to have longer term aims.”
Hutchison takes inspiration from the strong foundation of undergrads coming into the Lemmon Lab. Cohorts of students get to know each other and often become friends.
“It’s a friendly place where people are willing to help each other out. This sort of environment is crucial to having a good undergrad experience,” he says.
Conducive support is present in the Gupta Lab too, agrees Shepherd.
“We make academic structures more accessible, and I appreciate the space to be a mentor to undergrad students. We have the freedom to practice independence as a scientist.”
By pooling faculty from different backgrounds to focus on common challenges, the design of the Institutes and the collaborative culture of West Campus is also helping.
“It’s a ‘passion first’ place in terms of research,” says Hutchison. “It doesn’t feel transactional when you work here. You’re allowed to really pursue your scientific goals and dreams, and that’s the kind of place we want undergrads – at Yale and through New Haven Promise – to experience. If I work a weekend, it’s not because anyone made me, it’s because I genuinely want to know the answer to something. I think that comes across in a very positive way to undergrads.”
“The majority of people want to be here to pursue the science they want to pursue.”
For more information about the New Haven Promise program at Yale’s West Campus, please contact jon.atherton@yale.edu.