Dr. Rubin recognized as exceptional mentor to junior faculty

Dr. Janet Rubin, a researcher renowned for her work on understanding the control of bone remodeling, also spends countless hours mentoring students, fellows and junior faculty. Dr. Rubin has helped advance the careers of dozens of postdoctoral fellows and constructed a program to help transition junior faculty into independent Principal Investigators. An exemplary mentor, Dr. Rubin has been selected for the Carolina Women's Leadership Council's Faculty to Junior Faculty Mentoring Award.

Established in 2006, the Faculty Mentoring Awards, sponsored by the Carolina Women's Leadership Council, recognize outstanding faculty members who go the extra mile to guide, mentor and teach. Each year the Council recognizes three recipients with an award of $5,000 each in the categories of faculty-to-undergraduate student mentoring, faculty-to-graduate student mentoring and faculty-to-junior faculty mentoring.

Through the NC Translational and Clinical Sciences (NC TraCS) Institute R-Grant Working Group (RgWG), which Dr. Rubin created and has been directing since 2008, she has positively impacted the careers of numerous junior faculty members. Her vision for the program was to assist junior faculty members who were currently funded by an NIH Career Development (K) Award to write their initial research project (R-type) grant. She also wanted to teach these individuals to become mentors for the next generation of junior faculty members who would assume their roles.

“The RgWG Program has succeeded beyond our wildest dreams,” John B. Buse, MD, PhD, Co-Director of TraCS said. "Virtually all of its success can be attributed to the passion, hard work, dedication, and commitment of Dr. Rubin. Approximately 80% of faculty who are accepted into the program are successful in obtaining R-type grants, far in excess of the more usual 20% success rate.”

Alex Duncan, MD, PhD, has been Dr. Rubin's program partner throughout the life of the R-Grant Working Group. She credits much of its success to his contributions.

A program of this nature has since been adopted by institutions across the nation, with their program serving as a model. Dr. Rubin's commitment to junior faculty is invaluable to TraCS and the Department.