Assistant Professor of Biology Cindy Malone has been awarded with the Don Dorsey Excellence in Mentoring Award for her work with CSUN medical students.
Malone is among three other Dorsey recipients, professor Gabriela Chavira, professor Parthenia Hosch and professor Everto “Veto” Ruiz Win whom have also been honored for their excellence and achievements in teaching.
The Dorsey Award recognizes faculty and staff who have made exceptional contributions to mentoring of past and present students; who take a holistic approach to mentoring, including academic and personal support. The award further includes acknowledgement of those who support the University’s commitment to the success of students of diverse backgrounds and communities.
“It was nice, it was surprising,” Malone said of receiving the award. “You know I do feel like I spend a lot of time with students and I really enjoy it. It really meant a lot to just have students that you know and colleagues that wanted to put me up for the award.”
Malone, who has been teaching at CSUN since 2005, earned her B.S. from Illinois State University and a Ph.D. from UCLA. Malone mentors students through her research lab and her grant project, the CSUN-UCLA Bridges to Stem Cell Research.
“I’ve probably been mentoring students since I was a little kid,” joked Malone. “Tutoring, teaching, helping, when I was a graduate student at UCLA I did my graduate work there, I was always working with undergraduates in the lab, so it was kind of a natural progression to move into a position where I actually was a real mentor to students.”
The CSUN-UCLA Bridges program, which is funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, is an inter-institutional training program that provides in-depth opportunities and activities for students who wish to gain the necessary skills and qualifications regarding stem cell research.
“We just received a renewal grant this grant, so we had three full years of funding to send students to UCLA to do stem cell research in labs at UCLA,” Malone said.
Malone is a director of the grant and a mentor in the program in which she oversees the work of her students. Malone works closely with the students to ensure that those interested in becoming part of the program get in.
“We, have six masters students each year, and the work that they go and do at UCLA is their master’s thesis data and then they come back here, finish all their coursework and write it up,” Malone said.
Following the completion of the coursework, Malone helps the students achieve their desired profession.
“I do the writing and editing process with the students, until they’re ready to be awarded their master’s degree, so then most of them are either looking to go to a Ph.D program, a medical school, to get a job in industry, and I help them with that.”
Malone and the other professors will be awarded at a reception on today at 5:30 p.m. in the Thousand Oaks Room located in the USU.