Recently, I (Sabrina) attended a workshop hosted by our Undergraduate Research Program (URP) on “equity-centered mentoring in undergraduate research.” The workshop was led by Associate Director CJ Fleming and other URP leaders, and focused on applying the “JEDI-B” framework to UR mentoring, by considering justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging in UR contexts. One part of the seminar specifically addressed concrete ways faculty can increase their support of diverse students, such as by considering their positionality and their students’ positionality, mentee recruitment and retention, relationship building, and research-specific issues such as representing diverse authors and populations. In the discussion of positionality, CJ discussed the concept of mentors considering their own identity positionality in terms of who their actual grandparents are, as well as who their “academic grandparents” are.  

CJ described that her goal was to encourage participant mentors to consider both how we are shaped in terms of our personal identity, and to also facilitate a conversation on the ways in which those who have trained us in our professional degrees also leave their mark on our style as mentors in terms of disciplinary and personal norms. CJ’s idea sparked my thinking about this blog post on genealogical influences on my career and mentoring, and thus she is listed as a coauthor. In this post, I focus on my own reflections about her initial suggestion.  

In academia, mentoring relationships are the primary way knowledge is transmitted from one generation to the next. These chains of relationships can be tracked and visualized using academic genealogy, much like family trees (see an example of an academic family tree site at NeuroTree). Through the mentoring we receive, we learn disciplinary knowledge and theoretical framing, practical skills in research methodology, and we may experience mentoring characteristics that promote not only our own success, but also that of our future mentees. Below, I explore my own ancestry and how it has shaped my career and mentoring.  

My “Academic Grandmother” 

My “academic grandmother” was Dr. Esther Thelen (b. 1941, d. 2004), who is well-known for integrating principles from chaos theory into a dynamic systems framework of behavioral development. In describing her own unplanned career path, she shared she “fell between the mentoring cracks,” because her “graduate training was an amalgam of biology and psychology” (Thelen 1996, 29). Thelen was driven by her own intrinsic motivation to learn and blended her intellectual interests across disciplines in unique ways (see figure 1).  

Thelen shared this arrangement allowed “much room for improvisation and discovery” (Thelen 1996, 29), which led to her revolutionization of several fields of science including psychology, robotics, evolutionary biology, physics, computer modeling, and more. Unfortunately, she passed away before I was able to meet her, but throughout my career, I have been inspired by Thelen’s innovative ideas and impact across multiple disciplines. Now, as a professional, I recognize how elements of her legacy continue in my own career, when I teach students about the applicability of her theoretical ideas (see figure 2). 

My Grandfather 

My biological grandfather was Mr. David Thompson (b. 1930, d. 2018; see figure 3). My grandfather was a hardworking and talented carpenter for most of his career. Much of his craft involved furniture, and he worked for a company renowned for exceptional quality. His creativity and ingenuity stemmed in part from an upbringing riddled with hardship. My grandfather was one of ten children and only received formal instruction in school up to the third grade. His family’s limited access to education meant men often worked as laborers in farms and factories in the south, while women worked as housewives. I admire his lifetime of resilience and feel inspired by the ways he and those before him overcame hardship. His ancestors seem to have immigrated to the United States from Scotland in the 1600s due to war, indentured servitude, religious persecution, or banishment. By the time I came into the picture, my grandfather was retired. Despite the challenges faced by my ancestors on his side of my family, his sense of humor endured, and he was a beloved member of his community. My siblings and I frequently found our grandfather out in his vast garden when we visited when I was a child. He was a simple man—and he was resourceful, assertive, and rooted in a quiet, unwavering sense of purpose.  

On Legacies  

My grandfather and academic grandmother were born around the same time, but influenced my life and career in drastically different ways. My grandfather’s story is important because I am a first-generation college student, and the first in my family to ever earn an advanced degree. Like many first-generation college students, throughout the ten years of my higher education and well into my professional career, I have embarked on specific challenges that no one in my family could relate to because they have not experienced it before (Ward et al. 2012). My experience in academia has interesting parallels with those of my academic grandmother, who characterized her career trajectory as a process of simply following her interests through “improvisation” (Thelen 1996).  

I think in the end, both of my ancestors described here have taught me the importance of holding fast to a sense of purpose, working hard toward goals, following interests, creating paths when such models do not exist, and feeling a sense of reassurance that these characteristics are what “success” looks like. I also try to reflect these ideals in my own mentoring of students. I feel honored to have this perspective, which is inspired by the mentoring I have received in academia, but also by my own family.  

Returning to how this reflection began, I enthusiastically agree with my colleague CJ’s suggestion to consider my identity positionality as a mentor by reflecting on my actual and academic “grandparents,” as there is much value in reflecting on how our approaches to our careers in academia and mentoring of students is shaped by our ancestry.  

Legacies of our ancestry bridge us to the past and demonstrate how purpose, values, and knowledge are preserved. In families and academic spheres, acknowledging those who came before us ensures their mentorship and influences endure through the enrichment of future generations.  

References 

Thelen, Esther. 1996. “The Improvising Infant: Learning about Learning to Move.” In The Developmental Psychologists: Research Adventures Across the Lifespan, edited by Matthew R. Merrens and Gary F. Brannigan, 27–41. McGraw-Hill.

Ward, Lee, Michael J. Siegel, and Zebulun Davenport. 2012. First-Generation College Students : Understanding and Improving the Experience from Recruitment to Commencement. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.  

About the Authors 

Sabrina Perkins is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Elon University and serves as a seminar leader for CEL’s 2023-2025 research seminar on Mentoring Meaningful Learning Experiences. She is an active mentor of undergraduate research in developmental psychology and co-designed a peer mentoring program to support first generation college students at Elon University. She has several publications and presentations on mentoring in higher education and has received awards for teaching excellence. 

CJ Eubanks Fleming is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Elon University, where she serves the Associate Director of Undergraduate Research. She previously served as Faculty Fellow for Internships in the College of Arts and Sciences, where she evaluated department- and university-level data regarding internship outcomes, shares internship best practices with faculty, and serves as a liaison between faculty/ students and the university’s career center. She also served as a seminar leader for the 2022-2024 research seminar on Work-Integrated Learning.

How to Cite this Post

Perkins, Sabrina L., and CJ Fleming. 2025. “Genealogical Legacies: Comparing Academic and Family Influences.” Center for Engaged Learning (blog), Elon University. July 29, 2025. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/genealogical-legacies-comparing-academic-and-family-influences.