2022 Fall STAR Educator Recipient: Shamimunisa Mustafa, PhD
Shamimunisa Mustafa, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine
Nomination Submission:
Shamim has been part of the neonatology sub-specialty fellowship training program for many years. She teaches fellows to promote neonatology-related basic and translational research-related proficiencies in order for them to successfully complete mandatory scholarly activity/work products required by the American Board of Pediatrics. She has single-handedly mentored legions of neonatology fellows in their projects, exposing them to meaningful research-related experiences, many for the first time in their careers. In addition, Shamim is on the graduate faculty of the M.S. in Immunology & Infection, and serves as PI/mentor and chair of thesis committees for students in the program.
Shamim also co-directs the popular Entering Mentoring Workshop, the innovative curriculum for which she co-developed with Dr. McManus. Shamim and Dr. McManus co-directed and co-facilitated this workshop, completed by postdoctoral fellows and faculty, since its inception until Dr. McManus retired last year. As current co-director with Shamim, I can attest that participants’ evaluations of her as workshop facilitator have been uniformly outstanding. The importance of mentoring in academic medicine is becoming increasingly recognized. Sub-specialty fellows are expected to mentor residents and medical students, without themselves having any formal mentorship training. To address this gap, Shamim took on the challenge of developing a structured teaching curriculum for pediatric and internal medicine sub-specialty fellows to enhance their clinical mentoring skillset. This was presented as an interactive workshop at the combined Fellows curriculum meetings in 2020 and again in 2021 and was very well received. This much-needed training for our fellows is now set to be an annual event going forward.
For her long-standing commitment to teaching and mentoring excellence and contributions over several years to the institution’s education mission, Shamim is undoubtedly very deserving to be a Star of Education!