Core Values of the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering

The Weldon School’s core values of respect, belonging, and excellence encompass all that we do. They are manifest in how we work; how we treat each other; how we collaborate; and how we train. They are the foundation upon which we work to discover and invent life-giving technologies that transform medicine and healthcare. They are interwoven into the four primary domains of our school of Community; Mentorship; Partnerships; and Research.

Community

  • Respect. Respect is the bedrock of our community. We treat ourselves and others with appreciation, dignity, and kindness. We employ active listening and open communication so that all voices are valued and heard. We create a respectful work environment by exemplifying professionalism in all that we do.
  • Belonging. We foster a culture of belonging by recognizing and celebrating our different life experiences. We listen. We care. We work to ensure equity and inclusion of all community members.
  • Excellence through support. We develop strong networks of support for all members of our community, where mentorship happens vertically and horizontally. We learn from each other. We embrace and learn from successes, setbacks, and failures in the pursuit of excellence.
  • Well-being. We support the health and safety of ourselves and others. We prioritize our physical and mental health. We implement a strong culture of safety and accountability.

Mentorship

  • Respect. We recognize relationships with power imbalances and use kindness and respect as an epicenter in those situations. A lasting and impactful mentoring relationship is the result of clear communication and expectations, professionalism, and consistency.
  • Belonging. We foster inclusivity and belonging by celebrating and recognizing the individuality of each community member. We encourage contributions from all and build relationships through collaboration, networking, and teamwork.
  • Excellence in Developing the Individual. We value the development and growth of each individual. We support the person where they are and coach them to meet their professional and personal goals. We celebrate setbacks and successes as critical pieces of the growth process.
  • Integrity. We are honest and forthright in our actions. We hold each other to high standards of professionalism and conduct. Academic or professional misconduct or harassment is not tolerated.

Partnerships

  • Respect. We share a common mission and a shared responsibility with our partners to achieve breakthroughs in engineering, medicine, and healthcare.  This requires full transparency between partners, agreed confidentiality, protection for inventors, and commitment to open communication.
  • Belonging through inclusivity. We create intentional, mutually-beneficial strategic partnerships that train a diverse, next-generation workforce. Together, we passionately pursue critical biomedical engineering problems. Within these partnerships, we ensure equity in education and research programs and in agreement structures to ensure fairness, shared credit, and inclusive participation.
  • Excellence. We pursue an inherent requirement of experimental rigor-detailed documentation, reproducibility, and utilization of good lab practices – to ensure the quality of our collaborative discoveries and inventions. This approach provides the foundation with partners and ensures maximum impact of our work. 
  • Innovative. We promote broad support of our community members to work with partners on creative and innovative educational and research approaches focused on discovery, translation, and impact.

Research

  • Respect of our discipline. We are committed to exceptional work and high-quality research. This includes rigor, reproducibility, and integrity of our research discoveries and technologies. We are committed to be the best. We are not shy to aim high.
  • Belonging. We approach collaboration with a growth mindset and are committed to share knowledge, resources, and mentorship responsibilities to make breakthrough discoveries in engineering, medicine, and healthcare. We expect open communication, transparency, and belonging to promote trust in collaborations.
  • Excellence through impact. We are committed to achieve transformative and equitable solutions for improving medicine and healthcare. We translate our developments to benefit local, national, and global communities.  
  • Innovative. We pursue innovative solutions. We are deeply rooted in multidisciplinary engineering. We nurture creativity and new approaches to solve questions and develop new technologies.
 
 
We want to thank MIT-Chemistry Community core values for inspiration and all the faculty working groups for developing each core value area at the Spring ’22 faculty retreat.