Want to improve young scientists’ mentoring experience? Train their mentors in cultural awareness | Science

Scientists who reflect on their racial and ethnic identities—as well as on those of their mentees—have the potential to be better mentors. And mentees of these scientists were also more likely to say their mentors were respectful of, and held space for conversations about, race and ethnicity. Those are the take-home message from a new randomized controlled trial—the first of its kind.

“Race matters in mentoring,” says Stephen Thomas, a social behavioral scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park who was not involved in the new study.

Mentoring is a . . .