About Us

In 2023, Mary Munson and Ben Gerber, two UMass Chan faculty leaders with strong interest in mentorship, established the UMass Chan Mentorship Steering Committee (MSC) and began offering mentorship workshops for UMass Chan faculty. The MSC and its leadership encouraged interested faculty to become trained as mentorship workshop facilitators by the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER; see Workshops).

Over time, Mary’s desire to further develop mentorship at UMass Chan continued to grow, sparking her application for a fellowship in the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) program, for which her proposed project involved the creation of a center for mentorship at UMass Chan. Mary was selected to participate in ELAM and subsequently sought the help of Jan Nissly, a CIMER-trained mentorship facilitator with a background in program development and implementation, to develop the would-be center. CLIMB was soon successfully launched in Fall 2025.