FIREPROOF ACADEMIC
Mentoring and leadership coaching for academia, with Dr. Erika A. Taylor
WHO I WORK WITH
Years mentoring students and faculty
Journals reviewed for across chemistry and biology
Directorships supporting first-generation and low-income scholars
Federal agencies served as a grant reviewer
Succeeding in academia is hard. You are asked to be a discipline expert, a productive researcher, an excellent teacher, and a dependable colleague, all inside a system that rewards research output far more than it rewards interpersonal skill.
On top of that, campuses are more political than ever. There were always personalities to manage and departmental factions to navigate, but now the broader national political landscape reaches directly into what happens on campus. Faculty are expected to be available around the clock, and the culture rarely looks kindly on work-life balance.
Fireproof Academic exists to help you navigate that landscape on purpose rather than by accident, and to prevent or recover from burnout while you continue to thrive.
Navigate
Departments, tenure, and next steps
Rebalance
Boundaries that survive the semester
Recover
Burnout prevention and repair
02 / APPROACH
“I have advanced my career at a prestigious university while facing my share of personal and professional challenges. Those challenges are exactly what let me help someone else read a department, weigh a decision, and protect a life outside the job.”
DR. ERIKA A. TAYLOR
Engagements scale to what you actually need, whether that is one review of an application packet or standing meetings every other week.
Hourly, booked as you need it
Professional coaching for students, postdocs, and faculty who need a candid guide through academia. Sort out the next step, prepare for a difficult conversation, or think through an offer with someone who has sat on the other side of the table.
INQUIREPrograms starting at 12 weeks
Structured coaching for tenure-track and newly tenured faculty learning to balance the obligations that keep arriving. We build boundaries, priorities, and habits that either prevent burnout or rebuild your life after it.
INQUIREHalf-day and full-day sessions
Training built for your unit rather than pulled off a shelf. Mentoring culture, workload and service equity, career-stage transitions, and sustainable leadership, designed with your chair or director before anyone walks in the room.
INQUIREProject-based engagements
Consulting for departments and academic units on faculty search best practices, response to departmental reviews, and processes that produce large, varied applicant pools while keeping searches fair, open, compliant, and aligned with institutional goals.
INQUIREApplication and CV material review
Graduate school and postdoc transitions
Tenure and promotion strategy
Every-other-week ongoing coaching
Navigating difficult colleagues
Career pivots inside and beyond academia
REVIEWER, EVALUATOR, AND PROGRAM DIRECTOR FOR
Grant review, external department evaluation, and manuscript review across more than 45 journals inform how I read the systems you are working inside.
A STEM professor and mother who has advanced her career at a prestigious university while facing real personal and professional challenges, and who is currently completing certification as a leadership coach.
Full professor of Chemistry, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, and Environmental Sciences, currently serving as chair of the chemistry department.
Faculty director of Wesleyan's Ronald E. McNair Program and the Wesleyan Math and Science Scholars Program, both supporting first-generation and low-income students through college and into graduate school.
Formally mentoring faculty colleagues since 2017, and advising departments on faculty searches to build large, varied applicant pools while reducing unconscious bias and keeping the process fair and open.
Manuscript reviewer for more than 45 publications including PNAS, JACS, and Biochemistry, grant reviewer for NIH, NSF, and the Department of Energy, and external department evaluator for multiple institutions.
Top 35 Women in Higher Education, Diverse Issues in Higher Education, 2020
Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching, 2018
“She helped me see my department clearly for the first time. I went into my third-year review prepared instead of anxious, and I finally had language for what I needed.”
PLACEHOLDER — ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
Sample quote, to be replaced
NOTE FOR REVIEW: THESE ARE PLACEHOLDER QUOTES, READY TO SWAP FOR REAL ONES.
College students, graduate students, postdocs, and faculty at every rank, with a particular focus on tenure-track and newly tenured faculty. I also work with departments and academic units directly.
Every engagement starts with a conversation about your situation, your timeline, and the kind of support that would actually help. Sessions are held remotely.
