Fall 2025 Mentoring Mentors
The Graduate School hosts Mentoring Mentors workshops each semester.
"Mentoring Mentors" is a multi-part workshop series for faculty and postdocs that will include discussions of aligning expectations, fostering independence, maintaining effective communication, and promoting professional development. See below for upcoming workshop sessions and topics.
- Fall 2025 workshop dates:
- Day #1: Friday, November 7, 3-4:30 p.m.
- Topic: Maintaining effective communication
- Day #2: Friday, November 14, 3-4:30 p.m.
- Topic: Aligning expectations
- Day #3: Friday, November 21, 3-4:30 p.m.
- Topic: Fostering independence
- Day #4: Friday, December 5, 3-4:30 p.m.
- Topic: Promoting professional development
- Day #1: Friday, November 7, 3-4:30 p.m.
- Hosted by Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER) trained faculty facilitators on campus
To fully complete this workshop series, it is required to attend all four session topics. Please note we are offering these sessions every spring and fall semester which allows you to attend some in the spring and some in the fall if you cannot attend four consecutively in one semester. It is a requirement of the Nevada DRIVE program that faculty mentors participate in the Mentoring Mentors workshop series.
Please contact Matthew Aguirre at maguirre@unr.edu with any questions about this series.
As the Director of Graduate Student Services, Matthew works closely with the Dean of the Graduate School and the Director of Postdoctoral Affairs, Graduate Recruitment and Diversity Initiatives to maintain and grow the offering of graduate student services to support the recruitment and retention of graduate students to the University. This includes co-organizing the Graduate Professional Development Workshop Series and the Three-Minute Thesis Competition and assisting in graduate student recruitment. As Senior Advisor to the Graduate Student Association (GSA), Matthew is responsible for the training of the GSA Council and Executive Board, fiscal advisement of the GSA accounts and overseeing all GSA programs and events.
Scott Bassett attended CIMER training in 2019 and is an associate professor of geography and director of the land use planning and policy program at the 91. His research focus is in environmental planning, specifically, he looks at the urban-wildland interface issues. Scott has experience in advising both undergraduate and graduate students. His graduate student advisees have received jobs in the private, government and education sectors. He has limited experience in mentoring assistant professors in seeking promotion and tenure. With an expanding role in his department, Scott has an interest in improving the mentoring experience of junior faculty within the University's geography department.
Clements-Nolle's research focuses on social and psychological factors that contribute to and mitigate poor health outcomes across the lifespan. Much of her current research focuses on understanding the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on a range of adolescent health outcomes. Grounded in positive youth development, she also investigates whether internal resilience and external youth assets can buffer the impact of ACEs on behavioral health outcomes. She is currently the PI on a project designed to evaluate a Systems of Care approach for children and youth with serious emotional disturbances (funded by SAMHSA), the Co-PI for the Nevada Youth Risk Behavior Survey (funded by CDC and the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health), and Co-I on study that aims to evaluate whether recreational cannabis legalization in Nevada, including cannabis dispensary and outdoor advertising density, is associated with changes in cannabis use among secondary school students (funded by NIH).
On research leave Fall 2023 and Spring 2024.
Eleni Oikonomidoy is a Professor of Multicultural Education and teaches undergraduate and graduate classes, including the following:
Marin Pilloud's research interests focuses on how the human skeleton can inform the understanding of human behavior in archaeological contexts and also be used in a forensic context as part of the biological profile. She is particularly interested in the application of dental morphology and metrics to answering research questions in both of these realms. Her bioarchaeological research has focused on Neolithic Anatolia and prehistoric California. Within forensic anthropology, Pilloud is pursuing research in the estimation of sex and ancestry. She is also exploring ethics and professionalization of both forensic anthropology and bioarchaeology. Pilloud oversees graduate students in research projects that span both bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology across the globe.
Kevin Shoemaker attended CIMER training in 2018 and is an Assistant Professor at the 91 focusing on Conservation Biology.
Jacqueline Snow attended CIMER training in 2018 and is an Associate Professor at the 91 with over 10 years of experience supervising undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral trainees. She hasn’t had formal mentor training but has supervised new incoming faculty as part of COBRE mentoring initiative. Her primary focus is Neuroscience and she chose to learn more about Mentor Training since it is important to build current skills. She would like to learn more about evidence-based approaches to mentoring.
Dr. Jafeth Sanchez earned a Ph.D. from the 91's College of Education in Educational Leadership, with an emphasis on Higher Education Administration. She is an associate professor and focuses on developing high quality school leaders in K12 education. Her research agenda is on educational leadership practices, organizational change efforts, gender and ethnic equity, outreach, student resiliency, P16 alignment, and GEAR UP outcomes. She has actively managed and attained grant funding as a principal investigator or coinvestigator for approximately $7 million since Fall 2012. Dr. Sanchez previously taught mathematics and was awarded Northern Nevada Math Teacher of the Year 2012 by the Northern Nevada Math Council. She was also a Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium Scholar and serves as a mentor for its current scholars throughout the country. Her passion for educational improvement and access to higher education are embedded in all aspects of her work in teaching, research and service.
Alireza Tavakkoli attended CIMER training in 2019 and is an associate professor of computer science with research interest in visual computing, artificial intelligence, robotics, and virtual reality.