Tag: postdoc

  • Cultivating a Postdoc Community (opinion)

    Cultivating a Postdoc Community (opinion)

    What happens when postdoctoral researchers feel like they truly belong? It is not just a feel-good moment—it is the foundation for success. A strong sense of community in the postdoctoral workplace can transform isolation into inclusion, stress into resilience and short-term survival into long-term thriving. It can help postdocs form the right mindset to face challenges such as career uncertainty, heavy workloads and relocation away from familiar support systems.

    For postdocs, community combats a unique kind of professional isolation. Whether someone is fresh out of graduate school or pivoting from one career path to another, postdoctoral training is a time of both intense focus and high ambiguity. Demanding workloads, career uncertainty, immigration concerns and financial insecurity can weigh heavily on postdocs and increase their levels of stress and feelings of outsiderness, especially for those from historically underrepresented backgrounds. Because of this, for career practitioners, faculty and mentors, focusing solely on the professional development of postdocs no longer seems to be enough.

    Why Community Matters

    Looking to expand our support for postdocs beyond their professional development, we at the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs at Washington University in St. Louis embraced the need to prioritize postdoc well-being and the creation of an inclusive, engaged community. We believe postdocs who feel a sense of belonging to a supportive environment are more likely to:

    • Maintain a healthier work-life integration, leading to better research outcomes, productivity and professional growth.
    • Reflect on their career paths, plan their future goals and make informed decisions about their careers.
    • Develop transferable skills such as communication, teamwork and leadership, which are crucial for career success.
    • Stay at their institutions, avoiding disruptions in research projects or the research group’s morale.

    With these objectives in mind, the skill-development side of the postdoctoral experience needs to be complemented with considerations about postdoc well-being, sense of belonging and identification with the institution.

    Initiatives to Cultivate Community

    Building a strong postdoc community and a strong sense of belonging has to be intentional. At WashU, partnerships and a little imagination helped us develop creative, low-cost initiatives to cultivate community, initiatives that any institution could tailor to fit the needs of their postdocs.

    Our community-building work centers on three main strategies: programming, fun giveaways and improved communication methods.

    Programming: Moments that Matter

    From our fall holiday pop-up to year-round celebrations of cultural heritage and history months, we have hosted events that offer postdocs essential touch points for connection outside their academic research and scholarship. We have reached out to internal and local partners (such as libraries and cultural organizations) and found they are often enthusiastic about collaborating with programs that align with their educational and service missions.

    For example, we connected with campus health and wellness programs to offer existing services (like CPR certification, health screenings or nutrition workshops) branded as postdoc-only events. Likewise, during LGBT History Month, we hosted Walk with Pride, a walking tour highlighting a local neighborhood’s LGBT history, in collaboration with the local history museum, which donated items for a raffle. With low investment, these events provide postdocs with opportunities to engage with diverse communities and cultures, enriching their personal and professional lives.

    Fun Giveaways: Small Tokens, Big Meaning

    We regularly ask our on-campus partners for fliers and branded stationery, which we include in a welcome kit we give away during orientation. A welcome kit is a small bag containing a collection of practical campus resources and promotional merchandise from the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs and our partners. We found that elements like stickers and branded lanyards not only boosted morale but also became a way for postdocs to visibly identify other postdocs across campus, sparking lighthearted and spontaneous conversation. We have learned to not underestimate the power of a sticker that says, “I’m a WashU Postdoc. I got this.” These small tokens help postdocs feel valued and connected.

    Communication: Making Sure No One Misses Out

    To ensure postdocs actually know about our programming and services, we leveled up our communications strategy with calendar invites, personalized welcome emails and festive event announcements tied to specific holidays or cultural celebrations. A successful strategy for us has been to share our announcements with the administrative staff in the academic units—they replicate our event invites in their internal departmental communications and thus create another avenue for the information to reach postdocs. Partnerships for proactive, clear communication go a long way in making sure everyone feels included.

    Call for Action

    There is still so much more we are excited to build at WashU. We are developing a postdoc parent network, a postdoc alumni network and a mentor network. We are planning more cultural events that connect postdocs with their identities and local history. We are finding ways to better support postdocs’ financial well-being.

    Community building is essential. We believe every postdoc deserves to feel like they belong, not just as researchers, but as people. And through practical initiatives like the ones we’ve shared, postdocs can develop a wide range of career skills that will serve them well in their future endeavors.

    There is no need for huge budgets or massive teams if we rely on curiosity, willingness to listen and partnerships across the campus and community. Talk to your postdocs. Then try something small, fun and heartfelt. It could be a sticker or a bake-off. Maybe it could be just a well-timed welcome email that says, “We are glad you are here.”

    The difference between isolation and engagement can start with a single gesture. That is a difference worth making. A supportive, connected postdoc community is not just a nice-to-have—it is a must-have for professional growth.

    Elizabeth Eikmann is currently the assistant director of curricular innovation in the College of Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and previously served as program coordinator in WashU’s Office of Postdoctoral Affairs. Paola Cépeda is the assistant vice chancellor for postdoctoral affairs at WashU. They are both members of the Graduate Career Consortium—an organization providing an international voice for graduate-level career and professional development leaders. This article represents their views alone.

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  • How to prepare proactively for a postdoc (opinion)

    How to prepare proactively for a postdoc (opinion)

    During my five years working in postdoctoral affairs at two higher education institutions, current postdoctoral associates have often shared their frustrations with me.

    Some feel they aren’t getting the credit they deserve in their research group. Others share they feel pressured to work long hours. And in terms of relationships with their mentors, some sense a lack of feedback and support from their faculty supervisor, while others feel they are micromanaged and lack autonomy.

    When I hear these things, it strengthens my belief that many of the problems that emerge during the postdoctoral experience could be reduced by more proactive communication prior to an individual accepting a position. Talking through personality, leadership and communication styles can help both postdocs and mentors better understand the relational dynamics, as well as the expectations and needs each bring to the partnership.

    So, while earlier “Carpe Careers” pieces have focused on the pragmatics of a postdoc job search and discovering postdoc opportunities, including those outside the traditional academic postdoc, I want to share the thought process late-stage Ph.D. students should be working their way through prior to and during a postdoc search, as well as advice on navigating the start of a postdoc position. My hope is that by carefully considering their own values and needs, graduate students can better understand if a postdoc position is the best career path for them, and if so, which postdoc position might be the right fit.

    The Right People and the Right Questions

    The first piece of advice I would give any prospective postdoc is that you must take ownership of your postdoc search. This includes talking to the right people and asking the right questions, which begins with asking yourself the most critical one: Why am I considering a postdoc position?

    People pursue postdocs for a variety of reasons. None are necessarily more appropriate than others, but your motivations for engaging in a postdoc should be clear to you. Some motivations might include:

    • To gain training and increase metrics of scholarly productivity in order to be a more competitive candidate for positions at research-intensive universities.
    • To learn new skills or techniques that will increase marketability, perhaps outside academia.
    • For international trainees, a postdoc path may allow for continued work in the United States while pursuing a green card and citizenship.
    • To increase time to think about career paths.
    • To explore a geographic location that might seem ideal for one’s career prospects.

    There is nothing wrong with any of these reasons, but understanding your reason will help you find the postdoc position that best fits your academic and professional journeys.

    Understanding Expectations

    Even if your goal is not to pursue an academic career and you don’t believe you will be in a postdoc position longer than a year, it is critical to take the postdoc experience seriously as professional experience, and accept and understand its responsibilities and deliverables.

    I fully acknowledge that the postdoc role can be nuanced and, ideally, it is some hybrid of employment, extended training and apprenticeship under a more senior faculty member. In nearly all cases, however, an individual is hired into a postdoc role to help make progress on a funded research project. This may involve funding from federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health or National Science Foundation, a nonprofit foundation, or the institution itself. Regardless, a postdoc is hired to help deliver important outputs associated with a project that’s being paid for. From this perspective, the postdoc’s job is to help move the project forward and ultimately produce data and findings for further dissemination. Successful postdocs understand what these deliverables are and their importance to their faculty mentor.

    Of course, this does not mean postdocs should devote 100 percent of their time to producing research products. In fact, many years ago, the Office of Management and Budget made clear to federally funded U.S. agencies supporting graduate students and postdocs that such roles have dual functions of employee and trainee. The notice specifically states that postdocs “are expected to be actively engaged in their training and career development under their research appointments.” Additionally, the NIH is seeking to explicitly specify the percentage of time a postdoc should be devoting to their career and professional development through recommendations from a Working Group on Re-envisioning NIH-Supported Postdoctoral Training. In a report published in December 2023, the group suggests postdocs should have a minimum of 10 percent of their effort devoted to career and professional development activities.

    It’s clear that the job of a postdoc is to both deliver on research products and invest in one’s own training and professional development. Given the need to effectively balance these two activities, it is critical that prospective postdocs seek to understand how the group they might work in, or the faculty member they might work with, understands the position. And likewise, it is important for the candidate to convey their expectations to the same parties.

    A proactive conversation can be intimidating for some, but the Institute for Broadening Participation has created a list of questions taken from a National Academies report on enhancing the postdoc experience to get you started.

    Exploring the Landscape

    Potential postdocs should also consider speaking to current and/or past postdocs with experiences in groups and with people with whom they are interested in working. Past postdocs can often more freely enlighten others as to faculty members’ working and communications styles and their willingness to provide support.

    Another important factor prospective postdocs should consider is the support and resources institutions provide. This can range from employee benefits and postdoc compensation to career and professional development opportunities.

    A critical resource to help you understand the current institutional landscape for postdoc support in the United States is the National Postdoctoral Association’s Institutional Policy Report and Database. You can leverage this data by benchmarking the benefits of institutions you are considering for your postdoc. For example, in the most recently published report from 2023, 52 percent of responding U.S. institutions reported offering matching retirement benefits to their employee postdocs.

    Considering the entire package around a postdoc position is yet another important step in evaluating if a potential position aligns with your academic, professional and personal goals.

    Putting Together a Plan

    Once you have decided to accept a postdoc position, I advise communicating proactively with your new faculty supervisor to ensure all expectations are aligned. A great document to help with framing your potential responsibilities is the Compact Between Postdoctoral Appointees and Their Mentors from the Association of American Medical Colleges.

    Finally, I highly encourage any new postdoc to create an individual development plan to outline their project completion, skill development and career advancement goals. This can be shared with the supervisor to ensure both parties’ project completion goals match and the postdoc’s other goals will be supported. If faculty supervisors could benefit from additional resources that stress the importance of IDPs, I suggest this piece published in Molecular Cell and this Inside Higher Ed essay.

    Deciding whether to pursue a postdoc position, and how to pursue one proactively, is important to maximize your future prospects as a Ph.D. holder. Leveraging this advice, plus that of other online resources— such as the Strategic Postdoc online course from the Science Communication Lab and the Postdoc Academy’s Succeeding as a Postdoc online course and mentoring resources—will help you to choose a position with intention and engage in deliberate discussions prior to accepting it. This will increase the likelihood that your postdoc experience will align with your needs and help successfully launch the next stage in your career.

    Chris Smith is Virginia Tech’s postdoctoral affairs program administrator. He serves on the National Postdoctoral Association’s Board of Directors and is a member of the Graduate Career Consortium—an organization providing a national voice for graduate-level career and professional development leaders.

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