Much of my time is spent in mentoring activities with undergraduates working on distinguished majors theses, with graduate students, and with postdocs. In this role, I strive to build a learning environment in which these individuals can learn, grow intellectually, and exercise their independence. Especially with graduate students and postdocs, the hardest quality to nurture is independence. All of these individuals are intellectually gifted, but many have risen to their current position primarily by doing well in course work. Their initiative, imagination, and independence have received little exercise. 

To develop independence, one needs to be given the freedom to make choices. I try not to assign research projects to my students, but rather provide them with a smorgasbord of possibilities from which they can choose. I generate a lot of research ideas which I continuously throw out into the lab environment. Students are free to pick up one of these ideas or not. These ideas derive from my ongoing research program, but when presented to the students, the ideas are not so well developed that the student has little room to express their own initiative. One of the biggest advantages of being a tenured Full Professor is that I can allow my students to assume the first authorship role on projects that originated from my ideas. Nurturing their careers is of greater concern to me than is advancing my own.