Lab Policy and DEI

We are fully dedicated to care about each lab member's career goals independent of their color, race, gender, ethnicity, cultural norms, experience, age, language, socioeconomic class, backgrounds, and nationalities. We believe that caring about each lab member's career goals is only possible with creating a collegial, diverse, and supportive environment where we can grow as a group not as an individual. You can find our lab policy and our dedication to Diversiy, Equity and Inclusion in details below.

Lab Policy

As an international PI, I have worked in very collegial, collaborative as well as very competitive labs in the United States. With these experiences, I would like to create a collegial, collaborative and supportive lab environment where all lab members feel comfortable to work with others and do not have any hesitations to speak up about any abnormalities and discuss them with me. It is my responsibility to resolve any issues in the lab. We have zero tolerance to any lab member(s) to create their "gang" or "boyz club" in our lab independent of their success in their research.
My role is to be a leader and a mentor to the members of my lab and the broader community, to advance your research goals, and to support your academic/career development.
I am also responsible for promoting a culture in the laboratory which allows for cutting-edge research to be performed in an environment that fosters collaboration, responsibility, and individual growth.
Undergraduates: My role is to help and guide you get research experience, typically under the supervision of graduate students, postdocs, or other researchers in the lab.
Graduate Students: My role is to help and guide you develop as a scientist, enable you to frame and answer research questions, and accomplish a successful research project and thesis.
Postdoctoral Fellows and Researchers: My role is to help and guide you develop as a scientist, enable you to frame and answer research questions, accomplish a successful research program, and enable you to build a research program for an independent scientific career and/or industrial career.
For both graduate students and postdocs, I will do my best to provide you with the full range of support (professional, financial, and personal) that you need to move on to your next career stage (a postdoc or faculty position, or an industry job).
Technical Staff: the lab’s role is to help develop your skills and prepare you for graduate school, medical school, or the next steps in your career. We will do this through active training, mentoring and support, and by exposing you to diverse research areas and approaches.
Email is generally the best and fastest way to reach me. I strive to have an open-door policy to the best of my ability and will make every attempt to be available should you like to meet with me outside of our regularly-scheduled meetings.
In order to schedule a meeting with me, please email me. If you need to reach me in an emergency (work-related or personal), you should all have my phone number; calling or texting is fine.
For other topics (lab culture and policies, responsibilities in the lab, meetings, grant writing and fellowships, conferences, publications, press, letters of reference, career advancement and post-lab mentoring), please send me an email so that we can arrange a meeting.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Dr. Yildirim and YildirimLab are committed to creating a collegial, diverse, and welcoming, intellectually-rich and engaging atmosphere where we can study range of topics in basic and translational neuroscience.
In addition to pursuing our scientific goals, we strive to build and maintain an environment that welcomes, nurtures and adequately prepares all members to pursue their careers.
For all positions, people from underrepresented (Black/African-American,Native/Indigenous, Mexican-American, Puerto-Rican), underserved (e.g. women, low socio-economic background, first-generation, rural) or any international backgrounds are especially encouraged to apply.
As we continue our efforts to realize our goal of empowering every researcher to succeed in their scientific development in a diverse, welcoming and inclusive environment, we eagerly solicit any inquiries, suggestions, or other feedback you may have. These can be addressed directly to Dr. Yildirim.