Malmgren, RD; Ottino, JM; Amaral, LAN. 2010. The role of mentorship in protege performance. NATURE 465 (7298): 622-U117

[Eugene Garfield]

Malmgren, RD; Ottino, JM; Amaral, LAN. 2010. The role of mentorship in protege 
performance. NATURE 465 (7298): 622-U117.

Author Full Name(s): Malmgren, R. Dean; Ottino, Julio M.; Amaral, Luis A. Nunes

Language: English
Document Type: Article

Abstract: The role of mentorship in protege performance is a matter of 
importance to academic, business and governmental organizations. Although 
the benefits of mentorship for proteges, mentors and their organizations are 
apparent(1-9), the extent to which proteges mimic their mentors' career 
choices and acquire their mentorship skills is unclear(10-16). The importance of 
a science, technology, engineering and mathematics workforce to economic 
growth and the role of effective mentorship in maintaining a 'healthy' such 
workforce demand the study of the role of mentorship in academia. Here we 
investigate one aspect of mentor emulation by studying mentorship fecundity-
the number of proteges a mentor trains-using data from the Mathematics 
Genealogy Project(17), which tracks the mentorship record of thousands of 
mathematicians over several centuries. We demonstrate that fecundity among 
academic mathematicians is correlated with other measures of academic 
success. We also find that the average fecundity of mentors remains stable 
over 60 years of recorded mentorship. We further discover three significant 
correlations in mentorship fecundity. First, mentors with low mentorship 
fecundities train proteges that go on to have mentorship fecundities 37% 
higher than expected. Second, in the first third of their careers, mentors with 
high fecundities train proteges that go on to have fecundities 29% higher than 
expected. Finally, in the last third of their careers, mentors with high 
fecundities train proteges that go on to have fecundities 31% lower than 
expected.

Addresses: [Malmgren, R. Dean; Ottino, Julio M.; Amaral, Luis A. Nunes] 
Northwestern Univ, Dept Biol & Chem Engn, Evanston, IL 60208 USA; 
[Malmgren, R. Dean] Datascope Analyt, Evanston, IL 60201 USA; [Ottino, Julio 
M.; Amaral, Luis A. Nunes] Northwestern Univ, NW Inst Complex Syst, 
Evanston, IL 60208 USA; [Amaral, Luis A. Nunes] Northwestern Univ, Howard 
Hughes Med Inst, Evanston, IL 60208 USA
Reprint Address: Ottino, JM, Northwestern Univ, Dept Biol & Chem Engn, 
Evanston, IL 60208 USA.

E-mail Address: jm-ottino at northwestern.edu; amaral at northwestern.edu

ISSN: 0028-0836
DOI: 10.1038/nature09040
URL: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v465/n7298/full/nature09040.html