Mentoring at ALTA

What is Mentoring?

Mentoring is generally considered to be a voluntary relationship that gives people the opportunity to share their skills, knowledge and experiences, both personal and professional.

Three Key Benefits for the Mentor

Improve interpersonal skills in counselling, listening, modelling, and leading
Access to new perspectives, information, and knowledge
Enhance professional relationships and networks

Three Key Benefits for the Mentee

Receive valuable feedback from an experienced subject-matter expert
Have opportunities to develop networks with experienced and positive role models
Have a supportive envirnonment in which successes and failurtes can be evaluated in a non-confrontational manner and new ideas can be tested

How does it work?

To initiate a mentoring session, a mentee should proactively organise a meeting with an ALTA mentor in advance during or after the ALTA workshop.

Step 1: Choose a mentor from the ALTA mentor list.

Step 2: Contact him/her via an email

Step 3: Organise a mentoring session either virtually (e.g., Zoom, Kumospace or Slack) or in person.

Boundaries of the mentor relationship

Professional and ethical behaviour is expected at all times in a mentor relationship. A mentor and a mentee should treat the relationship with respect and maintain privacy/confidentiality of conversations. It is important that the mentee makes his/her own decisions and is responsible for his/her own actions.

ALTA Mentors

Name	Affiliation	Position	Email	Taking Mentees?*
Afshin Rahimi	Amazon	Applied Scientist	afshinrahimi@gmail.com	Yes
Bahar Salehi	Go1	Senior Data Scientist	bahar.salehi@go1.com	Yes
Borhan Kazimipour	Australian Taxation Office	Director of Data Science	Borhan.Kazimipour@ato.gov.au	Yes
Daniel Beck	University of Melbourne	Lecturer	d.beck@unimelb.edu.au	Yes
David Powers	Flinders University	Professor	david.powers@flinders.edu.au	Yes
Diego Molla	Macquarie University	Senior Lecturer	diego.molla-aliod@mq.edu.au	Yes
Gabriela Ferraro	Australian National University	Research Fellow	Gabriela.Ferraro@anu.edu.au	Yes
Jennifer Biggs	Defence Science and Technology Group	Defence Scientist	jennifer.biggs@dst.defence.gov.au	Yes
Jey Han Lau	University of Melbourne	Senior Lecturer	jeyhan.lau@unimelb.edu.au	Yes
Maria Kim	Defence Science and Technology Group	Defence Scientist	maria.kim@dst.defence.gov.au	Yes
Meladel Mistica	University of Melbourne	Research Data Specialist	misticam@unimelb.edu.au	Yes
Massimo Piccardi	University of Technology Sydney	Professor	massimo.piccardi@uts.edu.au	Yes
Richard Leibbrandt	Flinders University	Lecturer	richard.leibbrandt@flinders.edu.au	Yes
Sarvnaz Karimi	CSIRO	Principal Scientist	sarvnaz.karimi@csiro.au	Yes
Shunichi Ishihara	Australian National University	Associate Professor	shunichiishihara@anu.edu.au	Yes
Stephen Wan	CSIRO	Senior Scientist	stephen.wan@data61.csiro.au	Yes
Xiuzhen Zhang	Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology	Professor	xiuzhen.zhang@rmit.edu.au	Yes

*Mentors: When you are no longer accepting mentees, send an email to exec@alta.asn.au to have your status updated.