A guide to mentoring undergraduates in the lab.

In a typical research group at a research-intensive university, a faculty member will lead a team of researchers that consists of postdoctoral scholars, graduate students and undergraduate students. Postdocs and graduate students are — by virtue of their self-selection, training and maturity — on average, more autonomous, productive and prepared than undergraduate students. With graduate students, for example, the primary role of the mentor is often to set large-scale goals, offer brief technical training and then provide occasional course-correction. With undergraduates, research training is far more detailed and didactic — and thus more time consuming. A significant undergraduate research project can, however, be the formative scientific experience of a student’s career. Even if, like most undergraduate researchers, they are not destined to be scientists, providing students with a realistic conception of the joys and pains of research is likely to be of considerable value to society. The experience can also act as a filter; it is better for a student to discover as an undergraduate that scientific research — be it in general or the particular kind practiced in your lab — is not for them, rather than making this discovery after committing to a graduate degree. I am a faculty member of a chemistry department in a US university who runs a research group consisting solely of undergraduates. We do ‘wet’ biomolecular nanotechnology, building and studying static and dynamic objects made from polynucleotides1 that have applications in biosensing. My advice here is aimed at anyone who is mentoring, or thinking of mentoring, undergraduates in a research laboratory. The utility of my observations and suggestions will, of course, depend on your own circumstances and institution, but there are, I believe, a number of universal considerations for anyone who has the opportunity to mentor an undergraduate.