Postdoctoral Position Research Articles

Careers in Academic Administration.

Academic administration can be an extension of an academic career at the bench or it can run parallel to a career of discovery. To be an academic administrator at the executive level in a college or university generally requires advancement through the academic ranks to the professorial level. These positions include department chair, dean of a college, head of a center or institute, provost, senior research officer, and university or college president. Positions that can begin immediately after attaining a PhD or after a postdoctoral position include some assistant dean roles and positions in technology transfer, grants management, and laboratory management, among many others. Many of the skills developed during the pursuit of an advanced degree in the life sciences are directly applicable to these jobs. All require problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, and the ability to communicate clearly.

Timothy Noël

Timothy Noël

Alan Astbury. 27 November 1934—21 July 2014

Alan Astbury worked in the area of accelerator based subatomic physics. Increasing beam energies, intensities and types of available accelerated beams opened scientific windows to new phenomena throughout his career. Exploiting these new beams required new techniques and the use of the latest technology. Alan was always at the forefront of putting these components together into the experiments needed to confirm or reject the latest theoretical advances or clarify conflicting experimental observations. Following his PhD using the synchrocyclotron at the University of Liverpool and a postdoctoral position at Berkeley, he became a staff member at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, where he played a central role in the successive experiments with the Nimrod proton synchrotron, the 26 GeV proton synchrotron at CERN and, perhaps most significantly, with the UA1 experiment at CERN that discovered the W and Z particles. Alan moved to Canada in 1983 and made enormous contributions to Canadian science. He was instrumental in building relationships between Canadian scientists and CERN, DESY and SLAC. As director of the Canadian Institute of Particle Physics and then director of the TRIUMF laboratory, he guided subatomic physics policy and planning for two decades. On the international scene, he was president of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.

Structure and belonging: Pathways to success for underrepresented minority and women PhD students in STEM fields

The advancement of underrepresented minority and women PhD students to elite postdoctoral and faculty positions in the STEM fields continues to lag that of majority males, despite decades of efforts to mitigate bias and increase opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds. In 2015, the National Science Foundation Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (NSF AGEP) California Alliance (Berkeley, Caltech, Stanford, UCLA) conducted a wide-ranging survey of graduate students across the mathematical, physical, engineering, and computer sciences in order to identify levers to improve the success of PhD students, and, in time, improve diversity in STEM leadership positions, especially the professoriate. The survey data were interpreted via path analysis, a method that identifies significant relationships, both direct and indirect, among various factors and outcomes of interest. We investigated two important outcomes: publication rates, which largely determine a new PhD student’s competitiveness in the academic marketplace, and subjective well-being. Women and minority students who perceived that they were well-prepared for their graduate courses and accepted by their colleagues (faculty and fellow students), and who experienced well-articulated and structured PhD programs, were most likely to publish at rates comparable to their male majority peers. Women PhD students experienced significantly higher levels of distress than their male peers, both majority and minority, while both women and minority student distress levels were mitigated by clearly-articulated expectations, perceiving that they were well-prepared for graduate level courses, and feeling accepted by their colleagues. It is unclear whether higher levels of distress in women students is related directly to their experiences in their STEM PhD programs. The findings suggest that mitigating factors that negatively affect diversity should not, in principle, require the investment of large resources, but rather requires attention to the local culture and structure of individual STEM PhD programs.

Entrevista com Mark Fellowes: "We must learn to reduce our demands on the ecosphere, but I'm not sure that we're smart enough to do that" 26-29

Dr. Mark Fellowes studied Zoology at Imperial College London (1995) and moved to Imperial’s Silwood Park campus to complete a Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology (1998), followed by a brief post-doctoral position at the NERC Centre for Population Biology. He joined the University of Reading as a lecturer in Zoology (2000). Dr. Fellowes’ group work on human-wildlife interactions (People and Wildlife Research Group), asking how the choices people make have unforeseen consequences for species. Current projects include work on red kites, urban greening, cats and conservation, leopard ecology and urban butterfly population dynamics, and how the presence of mutualists affects plant-herbivore-enemy interactions in an urban context. The work of Dr. Fellowes’ research group has featured widely in national and international print and broadcast media, won a silver medal at the Chelsea Flower Show, and he has published two science books aimed at the general public

Post-Doc Interviews in the Life Sciences: An Often-Overlooked Process that Is Susceptible to Bias.

SynopsisPost-doctoral training is a critical career stage for researchers in the life sciences, yet interviewing for a post-doctoral position is largely an unregulated process. Without regulation, interviews are susceptible to unconscious biases that may lead to discrimination against certain demographic groups (e.g., women and minorities). Using data from an online survey of post-docs, we show that interview procedures for post-doctoral positions in the life sciences are correlated with several factors (e.g., candidate demographics) in ways that may bias the outcome of interviews. We discuss key components of interviews and suggest that conducting standardized, well-planned interviews that are less susceptible to unconscious biases may help increase the retention of women and under-represented minorities in the life sciences.

In My Element: Sulfur

The In My Element series celebrates the personal accounts from Chemistry – A European Journal Editorial Board members for the 2019 International Year of the Periodic Table. In this contribution, Tien-Yau Luh gives his story on sulfur. I never “loved” smelly sulfur compounds, but have always admired the versatility of sulfur chemistry. In the 1980s, we worked on organometallics to mimic desulfurization by Raney nickel and oil refining hydrotreatment. My first Ph.D. student, Zhi-Jie Ni, joined the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1986. He was more synthetically oriented and had just learned cross-coupling from Kumada's seminar in Shanghai. Quite quickly, he discovered the nickel-catalyzed olefination of benzylic and allylic dithioacetals under Kumada conditions. Silyl-substituted styrenes and dienes could be obtained conveniently using this method. Meanwhile, Lam Lung Yeung unearthed Mo(CO)6-promoted desulfurdimerization of dithiolanes. These discoveries led us to work systematically on the conversion of two C−S bonds in dithioacetals into two C−C bonds. Ping-Fan Yang furnished geminal dimethylation using a bidendate phosphine ligand. After I moved back to Taiwan in 1988, Ken-Tsung Wong invented chelation-assisted, nickel-catalyzed olefination of aliphatic dithioacetals. Sulfur and carbon have similar electronegativities, and thus, Hsian-Rong Tseng and Chi-Fa Lee found that the propargylic dithioacetal serves as a propyne-1,3-zwitterion sython. This strategy offers a one-pot annulation of substituted furans and pyrroles. Chi-Wei Chen used the Mitsunobu reagent to eliminate β-thioalkoxyalcohols (obtained from dithioacetals). The reaction could then be extended for the selective synthesis of oligodiacetylenes. Our group members’ endeavor have shaped the dithioacetal group as a “pet” functionality in our laboratory. Position Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Chair Professor E-mail [email protected] Homepage https://www.ch.ntu.edu.tw/english/faculty/?id=tyluh&lang=en Education B.Sc. National Taiwan University (1967 and Taipei) Ph.D. University of Chicago (1974, Leon M. Stock, Chemistry of Cubane, Chicago) Postdoctoral positions (1974-76, Paul G. Gassman, Minneapolis) Notable awards Academic Award, Chemical Society Located in Taipei, 2012, JSPS Fellow, 2010, National Chair Award, Ministry of Education, 1999-2002, Ministry of Education Award for the Outstanding Research in Science, 1998, Outstanding Scholar Award, Foundation for the Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship, 1995-2000, Executive Yuan′s Outstanding Award on Science and Technology, 1994 Research interests Organometallics in organic and polymer synthesis, and chemistry of materials Hobbies Hiking, museums, calligraphy The Luh research group.

Assessing the landscape of US postdoctoral salaries

PurposePostdocs make up a significant portion of the biomedical workforce. However, data about the postdoctoral position are generally scarce, and no systematic study of the landscape of individual postdoc salaries in the USA has previously been carried out. The purpose of this study was to assess actual salaries for postdocs using data gathered from US public institutions; determine how these salaries may vary with postdoc title, institutional funding and geographic region; and reflect on which institutional and federal policy measures may have the greatest impact on salaries nationally.Design/methodology/approachFreedom of Information Act Requests were submitted to US public universities or university systems containing campuses with at least 300 science, engineering and health postdocs, according to the 2015 National Science Foundation’s Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering. Salaries and job titles of postdocs as of December 1, 2016, were requested.FindingsSalaries and job titles for nearly 14,000 postdocs at 52 US institutions around December 1, 2016, were received. Individual postdoc names were also received for approximately 7,000 postdocs, and departmental affiliations were received for 4,000 postdocs. This exploratory study shows evidence of a postdoc gender pay gap, a significant influence of job title on postdoc salary and a complex relationship between salaries and the level of institutional National Institutes of Health/NSF funding.Originality/valueThese results provide insights into the ability of institutions to collate and report out annualized salary data on their postdocs, highlighting difficulties faced in tracking and reporting data on this population by institutional administration. Ultimately, these types of efforts, aimed at increasing transparency regarding the postdoctoral position, may lead to improved support for postdocs at all US institutions and allow greater agency for postdocs making decisions based on financial concerns.

How to overcome professional jealousy

Do you compare yourself with other people? When I was in graduate school, I admired the students who were a year or two ahead of me. They seemed smarter and more self-assured, and at group meetings they always had the right answers, delivered with a nonchalant cool that I desperately wanted to emulate. In the lab, I remember admiring the fluid motions of one of the senior graduate students as he set up reactions, even the way he flicked test tubes into the glass waste bin. I realized later that he, too, had his struggles during graduate school. While I was fumbling in my hood attempting to run experiments, he was battling doubts about getting manuscripts published and navigating the swift waters of applying for postdoctoral positions or industrial jobs. As a midcareer chemist, I haven’t stopped comparing myself with others. I’m keenly aware of which coworkers make key breakthroughs

Prepare Well and Enjoy the Journey.

Prepare Well and Enjoy the Journey.

Erin Reineke.

Erin Reineke.

Dispatch: a move from London to New York City

Eight months after moving to New York City to start a postdoctoral position at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Jessica Sharrock offers advice to others considering an academic move abroad. Eight months after moving to New York City to start a postdoctoral position at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Jessica Sharrock offers advice to others considering an academic move abroad.

More than my publications.

I should have been celebrating. I had just hit the “submit” button on the online portal for doctoral theses, concluding my Ph.D. studies. And I did feel a sense of satisfaction. I had worked hard and was proud of what I had accomplished. But I was also overwhelmed by depression and anxiety about my future. Almost all my recently graduated friends had several published papers from their Ph.D. work; I had none. I thought my chances at the academic career I so wanted were ruined. I felt lost and alone in an endless desert. ![Figure][1] ILLUSTRATION: ROBERT NEUBECKER > “I shouldn't have defined myself based on my publication record.” I could point to reasons why I hadn't published. I had changed fields between my master's degree and Ph.D., and it had taken time to get up to speed in my new discipline. I needed to figure out how to work with my new lab's complex custom-built instruments and tune them for my experiments. There were no senior graduate students or postdocs in the lab to train me at the time, which made this task even more challenging. I eventually got my experiments to work, and I learned a tremendous amount along the way, scientifically and personally. But that is not the same as generating publishable results. As I approached the end of my Ph.D., I was anxious to publish. Yet my Ph.D. scholarship only covered 3 years, with limited support for a fourth year. My time was up. I had enough data to write and defend my thesis, but the results were not ready for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. So there I was: a newly minted Ph.D. hoping to pursue an academic career but without any papers from my primary project. My applications for postdoctoral research positions were either rejected or ignored. I needed to try something different. A few years earlier, a grad student friend and I had worked on a side project, which we published with the help of one of his advisers. The work was in some ways very different from my scientific training and my primary Ph.D. project (I was a chemical engineer, and my friend's lab was in the chemistry department), but I had enjoyed applying my knowledge and perspective in this new realm. Now, I thought this experience might help me get a position in that lab. I arranged a meeting with the lab's principal investigator (PI) and another senior PI. They were working on a joint project, and we had a lively discussion about it and where they were having trouble. I found that my different scientific background and the fundamental knowledge I had developed during my doctoral studies enabled me to propose plausible solutions and alternative approaches that hadn't occurred to them. They offered me a temporary research associate position, with the possibility of staying on longer if things went well. It wasn't the prestigious postdoc position I had initially been looking for, but I was happy to have found some water in my post-Ph.D. desert. I thrived in this new position. I finished the project in a few months—the PIs had originally expected that it would take a year—and they invited me to continue as an official postdoctoral fellow. I published some of my new work relatively quickly and initiated and completed a number of new projects. I also eventually published the results of my Ph.D. project. Most important, I enjoyed my work. I've since moved on to another position, and despite my earlier publication drought, I am optimistic about my future career prospects. Looking back, I wish I could tell my recently graduated self that I shouldn't have defined myself based on my publication record. My list of publications doesn't matter as much as the knowledge I gained in the process and the sense of purpose that kept me going. And I wish I could tell everyone else to try to look past publications, at least a little, when evaluating other scientists. Yes, publications are important. But a lack of publications doesn't mean a lack of intelligence, skills, or worth. [1]: pending:yes

What Does a Modern Anatomist Look like? Current Trends in the Training of Anatomy Educators.

Anatomical sciences are foundational to the health professions, yet little is known about the qualifications of anatomy educators at the graduate and professional level in the United States. Moreover, there is concern that the number of qualified anatomy educators being trained may be insufficient to meet the growing demand posed by new and expanded programs in medicine and allied health specialties. The authors surveyed anatomists from across the country to (i) characterize the educational credentials of current anatomy educators and (ii) assess the perceived need for education-focused postdoctoral positions or formal mentorships to prepare anatomists for teaching-intensive faculty positions. To probe the survey responses more deeply, one-on-one interviews were conducted with eight individuals selected to represent a diverse sample of respondents in terms of institution, gender, and academic rank. Results indicate that 30-40% of educators at the graduate level and approximately 60% of those at the undergraduate level lack graduate coursework in histology, embryology, and neuroanatomy. Forty-five percent of respondents had completed a postdoctoral fellowship. Eighty-six percent replied "yes/maybe" to the question of whether an anatomy education postdoctoral fellowship would benefit doctoral graduates. The top 3 reasons for this recommendation were to (i) establish independent educational research, (ii) improve a publication record, and (iii) gain additional teaching experience. Notable weaknesses of education-focused postdoctoral training were related to finances, fear of exploitation, and undervaluing of teaching. Moving forward, postdoctoral fellowships and other forms of postgraduate training may represent a key strategy for training anatomists in the current educational climate. Anat Sci Educ 00: 000-000. © 2018 American Association of Anatomists.

How to get a head start on the job market

As I was settling into my seat on a recent flight, I noticed a large group of young professionals boarding the plane. They were carrying poster tubes, and I wondered which scientific conference they were coming from. It turns out that they were education researchers, and the person sitting across the aisle from me was a graduate student who had already begun his search for a tenure-track position. For the next two hours, we talked about the similarities and differences between the job market for education faculty and the job market for chemistry faculty. One obvious difference is that there are far fewer schools of education than departments of chemistry at major research universities. Also, postdoctoral positions are less common in education. Another distinct difference is that in education, students apply for tenure-track positions twice, with the first application taking place two years before they plan to graduate. They call

Éva Tóth;

Angewandte Chemie International EditionVolume 58, Issue 2 p. 374-374 Author ProfileFree Access Éva Tóth; First published: 05 September 2018 https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201809467AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Graphical Abstract “My favorite food is Hungarian pastries made with cottage cheese or poppy seeds. If I were not a scientist, I would do something related to literature …” Find out more about Éva Tóth in her Author Profile. Éva Tóth The author presented on this page was one of the recipients of the CNRS Silver Medals 2018. More information about the award can be found at: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018, 57, 6382; Angew. Chem. 2018, 130, 6490. Date of birth: June 14, 1967 Position: CNRS Research Director, Centre of Molecular Biophysics, Orléans E-mail: eva.jakabtoth@cnrs-orleans.fr Homepage: http://cbm.cnrs-orleans.fr/spip.php?article7131 ORCID: 0000-0002-3200-6752 Education: 1990 Chemistry degree, University of Debrecen 1994 PhD supervised by Prof. Ernő Brücher, University of Debrecen 1995–1999 Postdoctoral position with Prof. André E. Merbach, Université de Lausanne Awards: 2018 CNRS Silver Medal Research: MRI contrast agents, responsive probes, coordination chemistry for biomedical applications Hobbies: Literature, cooking My favorite food is Hungarian pastries made with cottage cheese or poppy seeds. If I were not a scientist, I would do something related to literature. When I'm frustrated, I try to occupy myself with some simple physical work like gardening or cleaning the house. You can always see an immediate and concrete result (even if not long-lasting). The two most important things I learned from my parents are to persevere and to appreciate also small, simple things in life instead of only waiting for your greatest dreams to come true. If I could have dinner with three famous scientists from history, they would be first of all Marie Curie and then chemists from the 18th/19th century such as Lavoisier and Mendeleev. It is impressive to consider their discoveries made without sophisticated instrumentation. And I would be too intimidated to ask anything. I hope they would talk without me asking them. My best investment was the time I spent with my children. The most exciting thing about my research is to discover unexpected chemical behavior and then to explain and to exploit it, and all this in a team effort. My favorite authors (fiction) are Lev Tolstoy, Stefan Zweig, Boris Pasternak, and many others. My favorite piece of music is Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. My favorite motto is “Think like a proton. Stay positive”. My 5 top papers: 1“Gd(DTPA-bisamide)alkyl Copolymers: A Hint for the Formation of MRI Contrast Agents with Very High Relaxivity”: É. Tóth, L. Helm, K. Kellar, A. E. Merbach, Chem. Eur. J. 1999, 5, 1202. (Rotational dynamics were described in terms of local and global motions by analyzing variable-field relaxation rates. This approach is widely used today for the characterization of nanosized MRI probes.) 2“Detection of Enzymatic Activity by PARACEST MRI: A General Approach to Target a Large Variety of Enzymes”: T. Chauvin, P. Durand, M. Bernier, H. Meudal, B.-T. Doan, F. Noury, B. Badet, J.-C. Beloeil, É. Tóth, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2008, 47, 4370; Angew. Chem. 2008, 120, 4442. (A self-immolative platform that can be adapted for the detection of many different enzymes.) 3“Pyridine-Based Lanthanide Complexes Combining MRI and NIR Luminescence Activities”: C. S. Bonnet, F. Buron, F. Caillé, C. M. Shade, B. Drahoš, L. Pellegatti, J. Zhang, S. Villette, L. Helm, C. Pichon, F. Suzenet, S. Petoud, É. Tóth, Chem. Eur. J. 2012, 18, 1419. (Despite the presence of two inner-sphere water molecules in a complex, it is still possible to observe the luminescence of NIR-emitting lanthanides.) 4“MRI sensing of Neurotransmitters with a Crown Ether Appended Gd3+ Complex”: F. Oukhatar, S. Même, W. Même, F. Szeremeta, N. K. Logothetis, G. Angelovski, É. Tóth, ACS Chem. Neurosci. 2015, 6, 219. (Visualization of neurotransmitter release in a brain slice MRI experiment using a Gd3+-based MRI agent.) 5“Prototypes of Lanthanide(III) Agents Responsive to Enzymatic Activities in Three Complementary Imaging Modalities: Visible/Near-Infrared Luminescence, PARACEST- and T1-MRI”: J. He, C. S. Bonnet, S. V. Eliseeva, S. Lacerda, T. Chauvin, P. Retailleau, F. Szeremeta, B. Badet, S. Petoud, É. Tóth, P. Durand, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2016, 138, 2913. (A single ligand, when complexed to different lanthanide ions, can provide enzyme-responsive probes detectable by three different imaging techniques.) Volume58, Issue2January 8, 2019Pages 374-374 ReferencesRelatedInformation

Take a Deep Breath and Switch

Choosing a research topic is an important decision at any level. The choice shapes decisions about what graduate lab to join, which post-doctoral position to pursue, how to start an independent lab, and what companies might make good employers. The thing to remember is that "the choice" can, and perhaps should, be made many times during a career, and each time, it can take an exciting new turn. Lara Szewczak sat down with Amy Gladfelter and Tony Hyman to talk about what it takes for a researcher to pivot-to decide that they want to embark on a new line of research. What does itmean at different points in a career, and how can you motivate colleagues to follow? Annotated excerpts from this conversation are presented below, and the full conversation is available with the article online.

Addiction Lives: Ingeborg Rossow.

Addiction Lives: Ingeborg Rossow.

Meet the Editors: Dietrich A. Volmer

Meet the Editors: Dietrich A. Volmer

Time in the realm of Harold (1992–1996)

The conditions and the discussion which took place during my first meeting with Professor Atwood say it all. I was interviewing at an SFN meeting in New Orleans for a postdoctoral position, but it ...