Please welcome Kevin Neumann to the School of Molecular & Cellular Biology! Neumann joined the school as an academic advisor in Summer 2026. Intern Gwyneth Graham sat down with him to learn more about his approach to advising and how he likes to spend his free time.
What first drew you to academic advising?
The experience that I have had working with students previously. I just completed my PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology, and I mentored 12 undergraduate students in the lab across the years. From those two experiences, just getting to meet students is so cool to learn about their goals and dreams and past experiences and everyone is unique.
I struggled with my career trying to figure out what I wanted to do in college and was able to get a lot of support from advisors and mentors, and I think I didn’t know the value it could have, which motivates me to pass on that same type of mentorship to students in my career.
Can you tell us about your career journey and how it led you to this role?
I am from San Francisco and went to UCLA for undergrad and started off in pre-med track. I went off that track and then I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I got involved in research and joined a lab that worked with ants. I found that interesting and stuck with research. I went to grad school for a PhD at the University of Illinois and was co-advised by Alison Bell and Andrew Suarez.
In addition to research, I did a lot of outreach and was an intern at the Institute for Genomic Biology on campus, where I helped plan science outreach events in the Champaign-Urbana community That, combined with the Writer’s Workshop, mentoring students, T.A.’ing, and teaching courses, I realized my passion was in the direction of teaching and supporting students in education rather than research itself.
What do you enjoy doing outside of your job?
I love nature, hiking, camping, and playing basketball. I have two dogs, Bart and Bean, and they are very high energy and demanding of attention. I also go to a lot of rap concerts and make the trek up to Chicago every couple of months for anyone I want to see that is in town.
Any quotes or sayings that are meaningful to you?
There’s a song called Reborn and the refrain says, “keep moving forward.” I like it a lot, and even though it’s a short quote, no matter what happens, you keep taking the next step, whatever it is.
What is your personal approach to advising students?
I think the first step would be trying to get to know students as people: what their background is, how they view the world, which would inform them how to best advise them. Another is to approach the meetings around their interests and for them to feel like they are in control, to start there and then build professional academic development from that. Also, flexibility with planning is something I want to build in working with students. For example, if there is something that you set a goal or a plan and then what do you do if it doesn’t work? This summer when I am meeting with students I’m suggesting other contingencies ahead of time.
How do you define student success, both inside and outside the classroom?
I think it is dependent on the students themselves; they have all these goals inside and outside of class. Generally, I would define a nice balance between those. Obviously having a good GPA and doing well in class is super important especially if you plan on going to grad school and med school. But even for those things they also value the other experiences as well.
For your own mental health, it is good to have other things going on. Success would be able to enjoy these years, and college is a very unique time where you are around all these other people and cultures same age, place of life, etc., and finding community is a key element of student success.
What are you most looking forward to bringing into the next school year?
I would say getting to know students again, getting to know them as people and what they want to do. My goal this summer is to learn about all the resources we have on campus to direct students and figure out the typical paths and resources needed for the careers students are considering. I want to help with the MCB Undergraduate Research symposium and create more outreach events for students.
