On July 20^th, 2016, our members gathered at Baylor College of Medicine to start off a new cycle of regular meetings for KWiSE Texas Chapter. New chapter president, Dr. Jean Kim (BCM), gave a summary of our past activities led by our founding president Dr. Sukyeong Lee (BCM), and also went over survey results from our Annual Conference, which was a great success overall. Dr. Lee will continue to provide guidance as a member of our Advisory Board. Jean also introduced the members of the new executive committee who will be working hard to help KWiSE Texas grow further.

Also on this day, KWiS@TMC launched its Mentoring Program supported by WISET (Center for Women In Science, Engineering and Technology) and organized by Dr. Yangjin Bae (BCM) and Dr. Seol Hee Im (MDACC). More than 20 Korean Women Scientists at TMC signed up for this new mentor-mentee program and participated in the kick-off event. We considered that it is important for a successful mentoring program to form strong bonds, to encourage friendships among its members, and to understand what career goals each of us have and what steps are needed to accomplish our career goals. To foster good relationship between members, everyone participated on a “3-minute speed date”. First, each member filled out a questionnaire regarding her current affiliation, short-term and long-term career goals. Next, members sat in pairs, introduced themselves, and shared conversations on their goals and what kinds of support they seek from the mentoring program. After spending one hour or so to meet everybody, we all felt better connected to other members and got to know about each other better. Based on feedback from this activity, we will form small mentoring groups to provide a more customized mentoring experience; each group will be composed of one faculty, one postdoc, one junior postdoc or graduate student.