Faculty Profile

Associate Professor
Microbiology and Immunology
chelsiea@buffalo.edu

• PhD, Microbiology and Immunology, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, 2011

• Assistant Professor, Microbiology and Immunology, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo
  
• Postdoctoral Fellow, Microbiology and Immunology, University of Michigan

Research careers can be very challenging, and learning how to cope with the frequent perceived failures at the bench and rejections from manuscript and grant reviewers can be disheartening. However, I had the benefit of supportive mentors at all stages of my training, which shaped me into someone who believes that this career should be just as fun, exciting and encouraging as it is challenging. This is the mindset that I aim to foster in my trainees, and the culture of my lab. One aspect of this is to ensure that all lab members know that we are a team, and that each team member is equally valued and important to the success of the group as a whole. I am open with all lab members about our funding status and our mission as a lab, and I encourage all to contribute their ideas to refining and expanding this mission. I ensure that all lab members who contribute substantively to a project are offered a role in preparing figures, writing and editing the final work and are listed as authors on the manuscript. We celebrate all successes, even "minor" ones, and acknowledge the individuals who made the success possible. I further emphasize that the well-being of all lab members is just as important to me as the quality of their data, including encouraging mental health days.

My goal is to guide each new laboratory member all the way from the initial introduction to research and laboratory techniques through to independently thinking about their science, analyzing and interpreting their data, steering the direction of a project, and preparing their work for presentation, both in poster and oral formats as well as writing manuscripts for publication. As part of this process, I try to meet each trainee where they are, help them find and capitalize on their strengths, and identify skills and strategies to overcome weaker areas. I work closely with each trainee to get a sense of their career objectives and to carefully craft a project that merges their interests and strengths with our current mission priorities and funding. For postdoctoral fellows who are interested in pursuing an academic career, part of this mentored training involves developing a project that diverges from our funded research and has the potential to evolve into their independent research program. Each laboratory member has their own independent project that is not interdependent on anyone else in the lab; however, the skills that are required for projects often overlap, which fosters collaboration between laboratory members and provides an opportunity for peer mentoring. In addition to directly mentoring individuals in my laboratory, I also serve as the associate director for graduate studies in my department and as a mentoring advocate through the graduate school. I am open about my own struggles with chronic illness, anxiety, depression, as well as my experiences as a women in science.