Succeeding in Aging Research During the Pandemic: Strategies for Fellows and Junior Faculty

Advancing Gerontology through Exceptional Scholarship (AGES): a Mentorship Initiative for Early Career Faculty

Mentorship is critical to supporting professional development and growth of new and emerging faculty members. Working with the Gerontological Society of America (GSA), we created the Advancing Gerontology through Exceptional Scholarship (AGES) Initiative as a mentorship model to promote productivity and peer support for new and early career faculty members. In this commentary, we highlight the AGES Program as a prototype to facilitate peer support, collective learning, and co-authorship opportunities to advance new and early career faculty members, especially in the field of aging. Moreover, we identify four crucial strategies that cultivated and refined our AGES Program including: i) ensuring flexibility to address mentee needs; ii) establishing check-ins and accountability to enhance productivity; iii) fostering peer support and collective learning; and iv) delivering motivational and educational activities. Drawing on our experience with the AGES Program, this commentary provides recommendations to support other groups looking to develop high-quality mentorship programs to support new and early career faculty members in academia.

Survive and thrive: Personal stories of persistence and resilience in aging research

An academic career in aging research is filled with the incredible highs of important discoveries that improve the lives of older adults and repeated lows when papers and grants are rejected or studies are negative. To normalize the experience of setbacks and failures in aging research, we invited three senior investigators to share their journeys of persistence and resilience as they have navigated their research careers. This career development symposium was presented at the 2021 Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Geriatrics Society, which was held virtually. We aimed to connect researchers in aging, especially trainees and junior investigators, through personal stories of persistence and shared strategies to build resilience and respond to setbacks with a growth mindset.