![wierman-margaret-72dpi](https://endocrinenews.endocrine.org/wp-content/uploads/Wierman-Margaret-72dpi-980x1024.jpg)
Outstanding Mentor Award
Margaret E. Wierman, MD
Margaret E. Wierman is a professor in medicine, physiology and biophysics and OBGYN at the University of Colorado. Throughout her career as a physician scientist, Dr. Wierman has mentored postdoctoral fellows, graduate and medical students, residents, and fellows with an infectious enthusiasm. She ensures each has a strong scientific foundation and intellectual curiosity to allow them to become “detectives” in understanding a complex patient or making an experimental advance in the laboratory.
Her insatiable thirst for new knowledge that she can apply to the bench and ultimately the bedside encourages trainees with a strong dose of perseverance when things don’t always go right the first time. She helps each mentee to understand “the rules of the game” and to develop the skill sets and expertise to accomplish his or her goals. Dr. Wierman also provides the networking opportunities to her trainees that serve them well as they become independent investigators.
In addition to a commitment to individual mentoring, Dr. Wierman has developed and/or championed new programs or approaches to mentoring. Locally she developed and chairs the Colorado Clinical Translational Scientific Institute KTR mock study section program to help junior faculty in obtaining their first R type grant. Nationally, she set up the Women in Endocrinology Mentoring program that was later adopted by the Endocrine Society.
In her roles as president of Women in Endocrinology, on many Endocrine Society committees, Council, and as recent vice president clinical scientist, Dr. Wierman has encouraged the development of new initiatives to encourage mentoring across our constituencies of basic and clinical scientists and clinicians to support both individual development and enrich the diversity of the endocrine community. Margaret E. Wierman is most deserving of the 2017 Outstanding Mentor Award.