Dr. Mingxin Guo is a second year Faculty Mentor from Delaware State University. His expertise is in soil and environmental chemistry, with focuses on soil health management, agricultural byprodcuts reuse, and contaminant fate and transport in soil-water-plant systems. An avid gardener, Dr. Guo talks about his garden, the bioeconomy, and why he got involved with CABLE.
Q: What university are you the Faculty Mentor for and what is your area of expertise?
Dr. Guo: I am the Faculty Mentor at Delaware State University. My expertise is of soil and environmental chemistry, with particular focuses on soil health management, agricultural byproducts reuse, and contaminant fate and transport in soil-water-plant systems. An example research topic is farm-based production and utilization of biochar from biomass residues, aiming to valorize crop residues and animal manures through thermochemical transformation to biochar as a persistent soil conditioner and syngas as a gaseous biofuel.
What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
My main hobby is gardening, growing ethnic vegetables in the backyard for supplementing the family grocery need. I have a small garden in the backyard. I have been spending much of my spare time amending the soil and taking care of the plants. It is really a lot of fun to watch plants growing bigger and yielding tasty fruits.
What attracted you to becoming a mentor for the CABLE program and what do you hope to gain from your experience?
Back to 2010 I participated in a 5-yr, USDA-sponsored bioenergy and bioproducts education project. Through that project I gained the fundamental science of bioenergy and was exposed to the thrilling emergence of bioeconomy. We decided to divert certain research efforts to waste-to-energy technologies including anaerobic digestion, pyrolysis, gasification, and transesterification. The CABLE program provides us an opportunity to deepen and broaden our knowledge of bioenergy and bioeconomy. I am expecting to gain from the CABLE experience a holistic view of the U.S. bioeconomy, a better understanding of bioenergy technologies, a noticeable growth of personal leadership skills, an expanded network with peer scientists, and stimulation to my bioenergy research.
How do you think being a mentor for CABLE Student Delegates will impact their leadership development?
Not only Student Delegates but also Faculty Mentors benefit a lot from the CABLE program in leadership development. The CABLE program enables students to know the importance of leadership in their career growth, educates them what leadership skills are and how to build these skills, and cultivates them with leadership growth through a series of training events. I notice significant improvements of the trained students in communication, public speaking, and interaction with others.
If you could pass on any wisdom to CABLE Student Delegates, what would you share?
Value the opportunity and be dedicated to the training program. Go straight for what you need and show the efforts. The benefits will remain for life and will greatly help with your career growth.
What is the most important leadership lesson you’ve learned and how is it valuable?
The barrier to being a leader is yourself. Overcoming yourself is the key. Examine yourself and know the leadership skills that need to be improved on you. Select one or two of these on the priority and intentionally practice to grow them in your daily life with constant self-reminding. Daily progress may be negligible but yearly growth will be substantial.