They did that by enveloping Dr. Koleilat in holistic support and affirming her at every turn: Yes, I have time to talk to you. Yes, you can pursue opportunities that don’t directly relate to your thesis. Yes, you can succeed as a parent and a scientist. Yes, you can challenge the accepted wisdom.

With such strong support from her mentors, Dr. Koleilat quickly adopted this can-do mindset, writing a thesis that explored an entirely new type of treatment for genetic hearing loss. Today, she’s an assistant professor of molecular and medical genetics at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) School of Medicine. Her work is still pushing the bounds of medical knowledge; today, she’s aiming to improve genetic testing technologies for inherited disorders and cancer.

In the lab at Mayo Clinic

During her time at Mayo Clinic, Dr. Koleilat worked in Dr. Ekker and Dr. Schimmenti’s zebrafish labs, focused on finding pharmaceutical treatments using the zebrafish model for Usher syndrome type 1. The genetic disorder is marked by profound hearing loss or deafness at birth, severe balance problems that delay sitting and walking, and progressive vision loss. The only available treatment for this type of hearing loss is cochlear implants.

Both mentors helped her keep patients at the center of her project. Dr. Schimmenti frequently sees patients with Usher syndrome, insight which gave Dr. Koleilat’s project “a foot in the clinic,” Dr. Koleilat says. And though Dr. Ekker is not a clinician, he had a similar emphasis on patient benefit.

“He had a mentality that if we discover something in the lab and it doesn’t make it to patients — so what?” Dr. Koleilat says. “He had that constant drive of, ‘Let’s get this into the clinic.’”

Time makes all the difference

At the time, Dr. Ekker was the dean of Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Dr. Schimmenti was chair of the Department of Clinical Genomics, and both had busy labs. But they always made time for Dr. Koleilat, an example she now follows with her own mentees.

“Anytime someone walks into my office, I step away from my computer and I give them my full attention. That’s how you feel like this person cares about what you have to say,” Dr. Koleilat says. “Lisa and Steve are far busier than I am. So I tell myself, ‘If they can do it, I can definitely do it.’”

Dr. Schimmenti would patiently explain or draw out concepts she didn’t understand, Dr. Koleilat says — and crucially, didn’t make her feel deficient for not knowing the answers.

“She made me feel like we were learning it together sometimes, and that made me comfortable to ask questions and throw out ideas,” says Dr. Koleilat. “I think that actually helps the research process, because you’re more innovative when you can throw out ideas and not feel any judgment about it.”

That’s an important dynamic for Dr. Schimmenti, who believes that listening to your mentee can improve your science.

“A lot of times mentees don’t make any assumptions. As a career scientist, sometimes you make some assumptions and may not even realize it, just thinking, ‘Oh, everybody in the literature says that.’ And then you realize ‘Oh, maybe the literature’s not right,’” she says. “It’s better for science and it’s better for me because it allows me to take a step back and really try to see the world through their eyes — and then we find something new.”

Paying it forward

When Dr. Koleilat had her first child during her Ph.D., she experienced a new level of wholehearted support from Drs. Ekker and Schimmenti. Before she left for maternity leave, Dr. Koleilat met with her mentors to make sure everything was set up to continue while she was away.

“Steve said, ‘The baby blues are real. Take care of yourself.’ Lisa told me, ‘After you have your kid, we understand, your family will come first.’ They said, ‘Come back when you’re ready. Whatever that looks like, even if it’s a few days a week.’ They made me feel like I could do it with no judgment and with support,” Dr. Koleilat says. “I thought to myself, ‘Wow, I really have hit (mentorship) gold.’” 

Dr. Koleilat is passionate about mentorship in her current role at OHSU, but she started paying it forward during her time at Mayo. She started a mentorship program within the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology for lab technicians, with a focus on underrepresented minorities. The project, Dr. Koleilat says, was “all inspired because I benefited so much from mentorship.” 

“I thought, ‘I wish everybody could have this.’ How many people need that extra push to achieve their goal but haven’t been able to get a mentor to help them?” she says. “You can work hard all you want, but then to have someone put you up for opportunities or advocate for you — those things are important as you move up in your career.”