Mooney receives Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award

David J. Mooney, Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has been named among five recipients of the 2013 Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award.

Presented by the Harvard Graduate Student Council on April 10, the award honors members of the faculty “who go above and beyond as mentors to graduate students by supporting and promoting students’ research, education, career, and personal development.”

Candidates are nominated directly by their advisees and then selected by a panel of nine judges. The criteria for selection include interpersonal mentoring skills and the ability to serve as an effective and inspiring role model. Mooney currently oversees 17 graduate students (including visiting students) and 11 postdoctoral researchers.

In one of several nomination letters, a student described Mooney as “a truly outstanding mentor… helpful, supportive, patient, fair, and kind.”

“He pushes us to think about research in a very independent way, and he strikes the right balance between providing guidance and allowing us learn from the process of doing research ourselves,” the student wrote. (The nominating students customarily remain anonymous.) “The true impact of Dave’s work is much more broad and long lasting than the papers or discoveries that come out of his lab; it lies in the former and future generations of students who will carry with them what they learned from Dave and make their own impact through science and mentorship.”