NIDA has been a longstanding participant in the Ruth L. Kirschstein Institutional National Research Service Award (NRSA) T32 program, which provides exemplary research training and career development opportunities for pre-doctoral and post-doctoral scholars across the U.S. See RePORTER for a full listing of all NRSA grantees. Career development, training, and mentorship are key elements of NRSA programs.
NIDA is thrilled to highlight Dr. Ken Mackie's T32 program and his continued dedication to mentoring the next generation of scientists. See the interview below to learn more about his take on mentorship.
Please share a little about yourself including your educational background, what sparked your interest in research/led to you becoming a scientist, and a little about your research focus area(s).
Perhaps like most of us, my commitments to science and to my specific research focus area are rooted in the intersection of history and biography. I grew up in New York City in the 1980s, when the HIV epidemic hit the city very hard. In the early 1980s, we estimate that about half of all people who inject drugs in NYC were living with HIV; at the time, HIV was a death sentence. I come from an extended family whose members have suffered various substance use disorders across generations, and so I started volunteering in some of the first syringe service programs in the US while in college. I loved that work and felt at home in those programs – I loved the fierce, compassionate, and creative people and the undergirding philosophies. We needed, though, to build up evidence to guide action that would help people who use drugs survive. I have always been curious, valued facts, and am committed to working with and in community, and so forged a scientific career in public health dedicated to guiding interventions by investigating epidemiologic patterns of drug-related harms and their determinants. TO build that career, I earned my doctorate at the Harvard School of Public Health, and then completed a fellowship with the NIDA-funded BST post-doctoral program.
What led you to developing a successful NIDA research training program?
Together with Drs. Abeed Sarker and Lance Waller, I have the pleasure of co-leading the TADA doctoral training program at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. TADA (Training in Advanced Data Analytics to End Drug-related Harms) is designed to train the next generation of scientists to integrate rigorous and ethical data science approaches with social and behavioral science (SBS) approaches to generate robust, actionable evidence about distributions, determinants, and prevention of substance-related harms. Right now, data science training and SBS training are siloed from one another, and their integration offers major opportunities to advance drug-related epidemiology and intervention. Turning first to data science, a review of leading public health programs found data science classes are often isolated in data science departments, where training is technical and does not stress underlying principles of public health, SBS theory, or community engagement. A National Academy of Sciences report raised multiple concerns about this siloed training, including that data mining in the absence of community engagement – a central tenet of SBS – or team science often generates results with scant translation potential.
A complementary crisis renders SBS scientists similarly ill-prepared to effectively leverage emerging data ecosystems. A recent review of top-ranked public health graduate programs concluded that SBS programs heavily focus training on methods developed before the 1990s, and thus largely ignore modern data analytic tools. These curricular flaws leave SBS trainees ill-prepared to lead substance-related research that mines emerging data ecosystems. For example, social media posts can generate almost real-time data on patterns of substance use, but SBS students are rarely trained in the advanced NLP and machine learning approaches needed to analyze them.
Drs. Sarker, Waller, and I developed TADA to break through these siloes, and help develop a new generation of scientists who are cross-trained to apply SBS and data science methods to generate novel evidence and action to end drug-related epidemics in the US. Our approach is deeply multidisciplinary, from the trainees we accept, to the faculty mentoring teams, to the leadership team itself.
What is your mentoring style?
My mentoring style is individualized, team oriented, and evidence based. I draw on three primary tools in my mentoring:
- Individual Development Plans (IDPs): IDP are career planning tools that help trainees identify short- and long-term career goals tailored to their own career aspirations, assess their strengths and weaknesses as researchers, and develop individualized action plans to achieve their goals. I invite my mentees to develop IDPs every 6 months to help chart their 5-year goals, and then treat their activities over the next 6 months as stepping stones toward those longer-term goals. In addition to setting specific milestones, IDPs and meetings about IDPs offer opportunities for critical reflection and conversation about on how their professional identities and goals are evolving; their recent successes; and areas where they need support.
- Teams: I am painfully aware that I cannot meet the full range of any single mentee’s needs, and that trying to do so is a disservice to all. Early on in my relationship with mentees, I work with them to create a mentor map, so that we can identify their areas of growth and then link them to others – other faculty, peers, and staff – who can support their specific professional development needs.
- Evidence: Mentoring is not just an art; it is also a science. I try to keep abreast of new evidence about effective and tailored mentoring strategies to the best of my ability. I am exceptionally fortunate to have several colleagues who have dedicated their careers to conducting mentoring research, and learn from them – formally and informally – whenever I can.
What do you see as potential benefits of establishing a mentoring relationship with someone?
At its best, mentoring helps both the mentor and the mentee to thrive. We tend to focus most on the benefits accruing to the mentee – and evidence certainly indicates that these benefits are considerable (e.g., achieving milestones; impact). We downplay the benefits for mentors, but they are legion. My mentees teach me new methods all the time. They teach me about nuances of drug-related epidemics (e.g., impacts of methamphetamine use on cognitive functioning across the life course). Most importantly, several have developed into colleagues, and that transition has brought me such joy.
Have you been impacted by a mentor(s) and how has that relationship impacted your career trajectory?
I have been exceptionally fortunate in my mentors. Dr. Nancy Krieger was my mentor while I was earning my doctorate at the Harvard School of Public Health, and she gifted me with a legacy of commitment to community, uncompromising excellence in methods, a desire to critically and persistently link our current experiences with our past, and to consider interconnections. I then had the opportunity to enroll in the NIDA-funded BST post-doctoral fellowship at NDRI, which was led at the time by Dr. Greg Falkin; it has subsequently moved to NYU. Dr. Falkin taught me how to write strong, high-impact scientific papers and grant proposals; he also created a lovely peer mentoring community, and I have tried to foster peer mentoring across my career. At Emory, my mentors have been so many, but include luminaries like Drs. Claire Sterk and Gene Brody, Kelli Komro and Jonathan Rupp, and James Curran and Dani Fallin. Through them I have learned about building robust institutions and communities; about fostering persistence and growth through inevitable hardship; and mentoring!
How do you recommend someone who are early on in their careers find the right mentor?
What a great question. Here are some basic principles to potentially consider:
- Think of your career as unfolding in chapters. That is, your mentoring goals and needs will evolve, as you achieve specific milestones and as the field and your interests evolve. Take time periodically to reflect on how your professional needs and goals are evolving, and then critically reflect on your current mentoring needs and goals. You may find that you need some new mentors to support you in whatever next chapter you are starting.
- Shift from a one-on-one mentoring approach to a team-based approach. No single person will be able to meet all your mentoring needs. Consider creating a mentor map – that is, identifying what kinds of support you need – and then use that map to build your team. Be clear with each member about what you (and they) need from the relationship.
- Remember that your peers can be highly effective mentors. Peer mentors have a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities you are facing, and can help form a collaborative environment for collective trouble-shooting, information sharing, and growth.
Is there anything else you would like to share with the NIDA research training community?
Thank you for asking! YES, I DO! I want to take this moment to recognize all the mentoring that I have received from NIDA Project Officers, Grants Management Specialists, Science Officers, and Scientific Review Officers over the years – there are too many to list all by name, but they certainly include Drs. Sheba Dunston, Amy Goldstein, Aria Crump, and Rich Jenkins. They have consistently challenged us to achieve scientific excellence, and then helped us achieve it together.