Become a Mentor
Are you eager to support aspiring professionals, diversity and inclusion efforts, or for another service opportunity? Or perhaps you are looking for an opportunity to gain some mentoring experience. Look no further!
Conferences provide unique mentoring opportunities as it allows you to mentor individuals outside of your institution, and possibly country. For the first time, ISMAR is offering a conference-sponsored mentorship program to assist students in finding mentors, and to aid mentors in finding interested students.
Why You Should Sign-Up
- As stated above, mentoring allows you to network with aspiring professionals who will one day be colleagues
- Mentoring provides a service opportunity for your institution
- Mentoring allows you to meet new professionals outside of your geographic area, and possibly direct area of academic / work interest
- It’s an opportunity to support diversity and inclusion
- And being a mentor at a conference is an opportunity to gain experience for future mentoring opportunities
Anybody can network and establish relationships with other attendees at the conference. However, sometimes making first contact can be daunting and it can be hard to find serious students. Participating as a mentor assures you’ll make the strong connections necessary to foster mentorship. If the fit is right, and you are willing, this can also serve as an opportunity to meet a long-term mentee. This could provide additional opportunities for service and research.
There will be at least two mentor/mentee official meetings toward the beginning and end of the conference. At these large group gatherings, mentors will also have the opportunity to meet with other mentees not directly assigned to them, and mentors involved in the program.
Logistics
Graduate students, Post-Docs, Faculty, and industry professionals can sign up to be mentors.
- Undergraduate students can be mentored by graduate students, faculty, or industry professionals
- Graduate students can be mentored by senior graduate students, faculty, and industry professionals
- Post Docs can be mentored by faculty and industry professionals
- Less experienced professionals or faculty can be paired with more experienced faculty or industry professionals
Graduate students, post-docs, new industry professionals, and faculty can sign up to be mentors AND mentees. Mentee type preferences (i.e., grad student vs. undergrad) can be indicated in your application. We will try our best to accommodate mentor preferences and areas of interest. Finally, based on turnout, mentor relationships may be one-on-one, or in groups with other students sharing the same mentor. It will be up to each individual mentor to determine if they would like to have group meetings with all their mentees, or individual meetings.
Selection Guidelines and Eligibility
Sign-ups are open junior/senior undergraduate students, graduate students, academic faculty, and industry professionals. The following considerations will influence matches:
- Area of interest,
- Virtual status,
- Type preferences (perhaps a student wants a student mentor, etc.),
- Time zones.
Note: Under-represented or historically marginalized groups are especially encouraged to sign up.
Expectations
Mentors will be required to:
- Try to participate in a group mentoring session at the beginning and end of the conference
- Be responsive and engaged with mentees
- Reach out to mentees first once match notifications are received
Important Deadlines
- Submission Deadline:
September 5, 2021 (23:59 AoE) - Match Notification: September 20, 2021 (23:59 AoE)
How to Apply
To apply to be a mentor, please fill out the application form.
Data Privacy Information
All identifiable information provided by applicants and sign-ups will be accessible only to members of the Student Volunteer Committee and Inclusion, Diversity, and Accessibility (IDA) Committee. This information will be used for selection purposes.
After September 10th, all data will be de-identified and anonymized by the Student Volunteer Committee, with identifying markers being destroyed (deleted). This anonymized data will then be used by the IDA Committee for planning future iterations of ISMAR. This anonymized data helps us understand how many applicants to plan for, what countries are underrepresented, the kinds of accessibility resources we need to provide, etc.
Applicants can request for data corrections or for removal of their data from the pool until September 10th by contacting Cassidy Nelson at
Contact Information
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out via email at
I look forward to meeting and working with you!
Cassidy Nelson, Ph.D. Student, Virginia Tech
Student Volunteer Chairs , ISMAR 2021