SLB 2026 Professional Workshop Dinner 

Navigating Career Transitions: How to Optimize Mentor-Mentee Relationships

If you are a trainee in graduate school, a postdoc working toward building their own laboratory, a newly minted professor, or an established investigator, this workshop is for you! 

The focus of this year’s workshop dinner is how to establish good mentorship and mentee-ship practices at all stages of career development. 

Topics such as CIMER training/certification, mentor chains, and more will be covered by a distinguished panel of speakers including Samuel Cochran, PhD., Carlo Contreras, MD., Brianna Johnson, PhD., and La’Tonia Stiner-Jones, PhD.

Following the panel discussion, attendees will be grouped by career stage for a case study activity led by a workshop facilitator. This portion of the workshop will give attendees the opportunity to engage in candid conversation about the positive and negative outcomes of mentor-mentee relationships. Workshop attendees will also receive resources that can be used to support healthy mentor/mentee relationships. We hope you will join us in learning how to be best mentor and/or mentee you can be! 

Pre-registration required. This event is free to join for registered SLB 2026 conference attendees but you must pre-register using the invitation that has been sent to registered attendees (contact us if you did not receive the link to RSVP). Limited availability and onsite space not guaranteed so be sure to reply when invited in August! 

Meet the Panelists

Dr. Carlo Contreras completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, his medical school at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, general surgery residency at the University of Wisconsin and surgical oncology training at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.  He is a Professor in the Division of surgical oncology who specializes in skin and soft tissue cancers, including melanoma, Merkel cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and basal cell carcinoma.  He serves as an associate professor in the Division of Surgical Oncology at The Ohio State University and hold positions as medical director and associate chief medical officer of ambulatory services at The James.  Additionally, he directs and participates in various clinical trials, including industry-sponsored trials, investigator-initiated therapeutic trials, and national cooperative group trials.  From an educational standpoint he serves as the associate program director for the OSU complex general surgical oncology fellowship.

Samuel Cohran, PhD is a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Ohio State University (OSU). He received his B.S. in Biology in 2017 and his PhD in Environmental Science in 2022 from OSU. During this time, he developed a strong background in microbiology and epidemiology to assess associations between indoor microbial exposures and pediatric asthma exacerbation. His ongoing postdoctoral research expands upon this foundation by elucidating cellular and molecular mechanisms of pulmonary inflammation driven by environmental exposures. Dr. Cochran is currently supported by a National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) F32 fellowship award to investigate the role of dysregulated iron homeostasis and ferroptosis in ozone-induced lung injury and inflammation. Just as he is passionate about science, he is dedicated to mentorship and promoting professional development opportunities for trainees. He serves in leadership roles in the Society of Toxicology, including the postdoctoral representative for the Ohio Valley Regional Chapter and the Inhalation and Respiratory Specialty Section. Dr. Cochran is committed to advancing translational research outcomes, mentorship, and public knowledge in the fields of environmental health and obstructive lung diseases.

Dr. Brianna Davis Johnson serves as the Assistant Dean for Mentoring and Strategic Initiatives in the Graduate School at The Ohio State University. In this role, she leads the Ohio State Mentoring Initiative which provides workshops and resources to mentors and mentees across the university, the Summer Research Opportunities Program that connects undergraduates from across the country with research experiences, and other initiatives to advance mentorship, recruitment, and retention for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars across the university. Previously, Brianna was the inaugural Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion/Chief Diversity Officer at Ohio State’s Newark campus and Central Ohio Technical College. Brianna’s research and TEDx talk focus on fostering organizations and communities where people of all backgrounds can thrive. She is co-editor of the forthcoming edited volume Navigating Dynamic Campus-Community Relationships: How Colleges and Universities Engage with Demographic Shift (Routledge). She has also published on hate speech incidents in higher education and student experiences in service-learning classrooms in journals including the American Educational Research Journal, The Review of Higher Education, and the Journal of Community Engagement Scholarship. Brianna holds a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy from the University of Texas at Austin, an M.S. in Higher Education and Policy from Northwestern University, and a B.A. in Educational Studies and Urban Studies from Washington University in St. Louis.