An all-day workshop on the postdoctoral experience was attended by an over flow group of more than 100 people from universities, national labs, federal agencies, research institutes, industries, foundations, and disciplinary societies, including 25 who were invited to make brief presentations. The committee was impressed by the high level of interest in this topic, and by the spirited opinions of all participants, including postdocs, researchers, administrators, and other concerned parties. (A list of workshop participants follows this summary.)

The discussions, chaired by COSEPUP member Mildred Dresselhaus (and attended by COSEPUP Chair Maxine Singer for part of the session), were organized by the following topics: administrative status, compensation and benefits, classification and titles, career planning, postdoctoral offices and associations, foreign-national postdocs, and good mentoring practices.

The comments were too extensive and diverse to capture in a single brief document. This summation, therefore, is intended to offer a representative and informal sampling of specific comments from a diverse group of people and institutions. Many of the comments reflect efforts to enhance the postdoctoral experience by improving the status, working conditions, and recognition of postdocs.

• Institutional goals for postdocs vary widely by field and sector. For example, preparing a postdoc for “independence” does not fit the industrial culture, where more research is done in teams.

• Postdocs [at universities] may be “shadow people.” They don't have a place. Sometimes we have to use certain titles to get what we want for them.

• At Mayo, we classify them as research fellow (1-3 years), then senior research fellow (4-7 years), then research associate, which can last indefinitely.

• At Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a postdoctoral office was created four years ago to handle postdoc appointments, benefits, housing, etc. The office sends a letter to advisers after 18-24 months informing them how long a postdoc has been in their lab and whether it's time for a salary increase as required by guidelines. In the fourth year an extensive letter is sent asking for a CV and publication record; the PI and department chair evaluate the next step: will the postdoc be renewed for a fifth (and final) year? After that they either leave or become a research associate, with faculty benefits. This keeps them from falling through the cracks.

• Each institution needs to rewrite policy to suit its particular mission and pass it around to postdocs and faculty.

• The University of Pennsylvania started a postdoc policy in 1996 for the medical school.

• A postdoctoral office must not infringe on the postdoc-adviser relationship.

• At Caltech, they're between faculty and staff and students. When we started the postdoctoral scholar position, they wanted oversight because they wanted a relationship with the administration, not just the faculty.

• At NIST we have central funding, like portable fellowships, so the postdoc doesn't have to be stuck with one adviser. In several cases we've switched them to new advisers.

• UPenn keeps a database on all postdocs, including place and date of terminal degree, visa status, research field, what they've published.

• At Alabama/Birmingham all phases of postdoctoral appointments had been left to the discretion of each department. One of the first priorities of the postdoctoral office was to identify all postdocs on campus and create a database. The disparity between what postdocs were being paid became disturbingly evident, and steps are now being taken to bring salaries more in line with national standards.

• When a Howard Hughes grant is initiated, we have a contract with terms and conditions. It's still hard for us to track how fellows are treated. We

stipulate that $5,000 of the institution's allowance is for health benefits, but we see that some postdocs are getting it and some not.

• At Chicago we'd like more open and fair hiring, through a central source. It's difficult, because now it's done when you meet someone at a congress and talk them into writing you into their next grant.

• At Vanderbilt we require annual reappointment and ask department chairs to approve it. This allows institutional controls. I refuse to reappoint without suitable salary level, justification, and an evaluation.

• At Cincinnati, we approved a postdoc policy two weeks ago. We've been working on it for two years: health, vacation, maternity leave, drugs, salary at NRSA levels, and benefits from general university funds.

• The University of California did a broad “vision statement” for postdocs in 1998, and each of the nine campuses is trying to conform.

• At UCLA, with 900 postdocs, the graduate division (not the university) took the initiative to put them in the same division, with the same facilities and benefits.

• Postdocs need skills that are applicable in any career. A postdoc must gain experience for the next career step. They're not just a person in your lab.

• Most advisers are academics; they don't know what industry expects. They need to hear more from the “final” employers.

• We shouldn't use the term “alternative careers.” This implies that anything outside the university is inferior: public policy, writing, teaching. These are just “careers.”

• Industry employers are looking for “soft” skills—those not developed at the bench.

• The Burroughs Wellcome Fund provides “bridging awards” of 40-45K for the transitional time after a postdoc.

• A transitional grant isn't needed. It may take a year or so for a postdoc to get up to speed, especially if changing fields; after that you can begin to see how they'll do. They should start looking for a job after three years, and five years is a reasonable time to figure out if this work is for you.

• Five years is plenty to see if a person is going to be an individual investigator; you may know even when they get their PhD. The difficulty is, if they don't seem ready there aren't a lot of other options.

• At UPenn, the time limit is five years; after that they go either to 1) staff scientist or 2) academic track, where they start getting independent funding. The most rapidly growing sector in science is the soft-money positions, like post-postdoc.

• At Hopkins, the limit for postdocs is six years, but you can come in after working somewhere else. We need an overall time limit.

• Both UCSF and the University of Chicago sponsor science career forum at which postdocs can give poster presentations and meet with employers.

• At Alabama/Birmingham, each postdoc can take at least one class per year, paid for by the postdoctoral office. We help those who want experience teaching and compensate for their time away from the lab.

• At Einstein, there is no formal career planning office, but monthly workshops about 1) academic careers, led by new assistant professors who had postdocs, and 2) other careers, with people from scientific publishing, patent law, journals, and Wall Street.

• Postdocs need to know how to teach. Being “allowed” to teach is the wrong word!

• Teaching is very time-consuming if done well. It has to be worked out with the adviser.

• Some institutions don't hold to NIH standards. Postdocs are in a very vulnerable situation. If more had portable grants and could move, they'd be in a stronger position to enhance their career.

• NIH has five-week courses three times a year in writing, speaking, etc. Some fellows have adjunct jobs teaching in the evening.

• Every postdoc should attend at least one professional meeting a year.

• Women are still at a disadvantage in science. A disproportionate number go into soft-money positions. According to a William and Mary survey, dissatisfaction is higher among women than among men. Women shouldn't be penalized for taking time to start a family.

• NSF grantees are getting older, over 30; a lot are married, a third have significant debt. They need benefits.

• Nobody's categories are perfect; each institution has to adapt something that works. Postdocs should get the best of both worlds, not the worst of both worlds.

• Some of the most gifted postdocs may be penalized if they're classified as fellows; the institution may or may not come up with health benefits.

• At UPenn we consider postdocs in advanced research training, in preparation for next career steps, whatever they might be. We have an obligation to train them. From that definition comes everything else. But we have two classes of people doing the same thing and treated differently by federal regulations. We have federally funded NRSA postdocs, on training grants, then we have the large majority supported by RO1s, which OMB Circular A21 calls a fee for service situation, who are taxed like employees and get benefits.

• At Eli Lilly Co, there are 75 postdocs who are classified as “postdoctoral scientist/fixed-duration employees.” Ten years ago all employees were considered full-time; now there are many contractors.

• At West Virginia, a postdoc is on a research track that can go on forever, but it affords a way to do that with benefits.

• At the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, we define them as students in training. Health is picked up by the grant, or if not, by the PI. It's university policy. We supplement grants if they're too low from the university foundation. After four years they become employees and get institutional benefits. Monitoring doesn't work at the local level.

• OMB A21 has created some problems and affected the rate of compensation. There are efforts to change that.

• Postdocs are not trainees; they're producing most of the results in the labs of America. We owe it to ourselves to compensate them right from the start. It would be better to have a smaller number of postdocs but better paid. They might be expected to do more. Now, it's ‘My postdoc doesn't work hard, but what do you expect for 25K?”

• Postdocs with a MD degree are paid on the house officer salary scale, which irritates PhDs. But if you brought them down to PhD scale, you wouldn't get any MD's to do research.

• At Caltech if the amount of stipend doesn't meet our minimum, we insist that the PI bring them up to that.

• We have an ombudsperson at NIH and it is fabulously useful, especially when you don't have someone in the lab to talk to.

• NIH raised the [NRSA] stipend because they had a lot of money in FY99. It was based on a general feeling that the scale was low, not on a philosophical change. If this report recommends a raise, it doesn't mean it will be done, but it will provide a general tone.

• At UC, a postdoc receives full benefits: health, dental, parental leave. No retirement. Five years is the legal limit of how long you can keep someone without paying into retirement.

• At Einstein, 85 percent of postdocs are on the NIH grants of PIs. The lab is required to pick up any difference below NRSA.

• At Vanderbilt, trainees and research grant people get paid the same. The trainees don't get retirement, but they also don't pay FICA, so they come out essentially the same.

• The issue about pay is one of basic fairness. We're losing the best and brightest people. We've got to get the salaries up, like at Los Alamos, where we pay 45K. They're 8-10 years behind when they start working

[in permanent positions]. These people are the software that drives science.

• At UC, there is no money from the regents or legislature. We need that. We need to speak out, justify it. Postdocs need reasonable compensation.

• We make them work like dogs and then cast them off at the end.

• If you give them 40K, they'll have to take a salary cut to get a job.

• We're losing American researchers. To someone from another country, 26K and get in the door, that's huge.

• At Howard Hughes we try to be flexible with allowances. If a fellow has a spouse with benefits, we let the fellow use that for child care.

• At JPL and Caltech salary is 42K, except slightly higher for computer science and electrical engineering. The lab picks up about 70 percent of benefits. There are 30 days vacation.

• At Iowa, salaries are now set at twice the graduate stipend; mid-upper 30s. full benefits, except retirement.

• At NIST, they try to match the salary of the average land-grant university assistant professor at approximately 50K, plus $5,500 for travel.

• NRSAs are considered stipends, not salaries, to offset the cost of living during training. The philosophy behind them is to share costs among postdoc, adviser/institution, and NIH.

• Vacations are often a difficult issue, since advisers are reluctant to delay the lab work. If a postdoc is funded on an RO1 through the payroll system, the benefits are the same as for other employees; for fellows there is seldom any provision for vacation.

• Full-time employee benefits have a cost; at UPenn the overhead rate is 31 percent.

• There should be an annual appraisal of both the adviser and the postdoc. These should go to the director of the institution and be part of the basis for discussion of their performance.

• The institution has a responsibility to report back to the sponsors. It's usually public money. This is viewed as onerous, but I've also heard complaints from PIs that private institutions ask for even more information.

• Lilly is just starting evaluations for postdocs. They write up objectives at beginning of year. There's a mid-term review, and at the end they look back at how they've progressed.

• From a practical standpoint, postdocs may never get written evaluations, but maybe the guide will help get more consulting and evaluating on an informal basis.

• At UT/Memphis, fellows and residents are reviewed by various committees once a month, and again every six months. It's very specific.

• According to NSF data, about half of the postdocs come from abroad, and about 50 percent of those stay on in the US. This varies by field as well. Returning home is a function of the educational system and job prospects in the country.

• According to an AAMC study, in the last five years many more foreign postdocs, especially Chinese, have stayed, as have Eastern Europeans. Western Europeans do not stay.

• In the early 1990s, more Chinese students stayed in the United States because of the 1992 Chinese Student Protection Act passed by Congress in response to the Tienimen Square Protest. The Act allowed students from the People's Republic of China to apply for permanent residency in 1993. The Act has expired and it is now difficult for students on temporary visas to convert to permanent residency status.

• Scientists should not be isolated. Science is increasingly international. In the US there is little recognition of the value of going abroad, even though NSF offers grants for this.

• There are cases where Asian postdocs are treated as cheap labor and paid the minimum allowed by the immigration office (14K).

• Advisers may experience conflicts between their own best interests and the postdoc's. The postdoc is in some ways at the mercy of the adviser in making choices.

• Postdocs need to lay out a roadmap of expectations and goals.

• Postdocs must develop skills they'll need for the future. They need to spell this out in advance in a letter. That's difficult when on PI grant, because the PI doesn 't want to let the postdoc out of the lab. It has to be spelled out.

• At Lilly, adviser selection is done with care. They have to demonstrate they've been successful in mentoring technicians before they can get a postdoc. Postdocs meet with a science council of senior management to showcase their work, network, and discuss any issue or grievance.

• You need oversight of mentoring by senior colleagues or postdoc committee meetings: the fellow, the adviser, and someone else. We need written evaluations; in industry you'd never think of not having them. There's a huge imbalance of power. I take a risk in coming here today.

• At NIH we encourage multiple mentors. We don't have mentoring committees. This seems like a good idea, but faculty members don't like it, and fellows thought it might be confusing having more than one adviser.

A formal system where someone is criticizing the adviser has problems, but feedback is important.

• At Pitt we require formation of a postdoc mentoring committee. Postdocs pick potential role models. Nothing contentious happens, but in rare cases where there are problems [with the adviser], this can pick it up. In most cases the postdocs get valuable feedback on their work.

• At Einstein, we have weekly work-in-progress sessions. All postdocs present their work once a year. If a person is floundering, the group will get together specially and advise.

• At MIT, when postdocs are going to give papers, they give a dry run for us first.

• Graduate students need mentoring before they begin a postdoc on what to expect and what questions to ask.

• PDAs are essential so postdocs are not marginalized.

• At Einstein a committee of 3-4 postdocs runs an association which deals with intellectual issues, social issues, housing; holds postdoc programs 4-5 times per year for faculty and postdocs.

• At Mayo, a PDA reduces the isolation. There are labs right next door you never know about. It expands the vision of what we can do with science. Now I'm doing something different from what I thought I wanted to do.

• At NIEHS faculty resisted us in the beginning because they thought we were trying to unionize. That isn't true any more. We have many programs. It is important to my professional development.

• Howard Hughes fellows meet once a year and postdocs present their research and network.

• At Johns Hopkins, the PDA provides a liaison with the administration, creates a social network, reduces the isolation. When we bring things to the administration they are more than willing to help us. For example, in the last few months we've arranged dental insurance. Each department pays $8 per postdoc per year to support the organization.

• We started out feeling that we didn't have a voice. We got officers, and now have good communication with the administration. It should be run by postdocs; the administration won't know to come up with these issues.

• Funding agencies have a responsibility to set guidelines that promote best practices.

• The guide should have more “how-to” information: what should the post-

doc be asking of the university and adviser? What should the mentor ask of the postdoc?

• We don't want to be heavy-handed, but the time is right to raise the bar for both postdocs and advisers. Both can do better.

COSEPUP Members

Mildred S. Dresselhaus

Chair, COSEPUP Postdoc Guidance Group and Institute Professor of Electrical Engineering and Physics

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Maxine F. Singer

Chair, COSEPUP and President, Carnegie Institution of Washington

Workshop Participants

Clifford Attkisson

Dean of Graduate Studies

Associate Vice Chancellor of Student Academic Affairs

University of California, San Francisco

San Francisco, California

Jack Bennink

Chief, Viral Immunology Section

NIAID, National Institutes of Health

Bethesda, Maryland

Etty Benveniste

Associate Dean, Office of Postdoc Education

University of Alabama, Birmingham

Birmingham, Alabama

Beverly Berger

Director, Office of University Partnerships

Department of Energy

Washington, DC

Sandra Blackwood

Program Coordinator

Office of Postdoc Education

University of Alabama, Birmingham

Birmingham, Alabama

Sharon Borbon

Executive Assistant to the Provost

California Institute of Technology

Pasadena, California

Henry Brenzenoff

Acting Dean

University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

Newark, New Jersey

Jerry Bryant

Director, Science Education Initiatives

United Negro College Fund

Fairfax, Virginia

Henry Bryant

National Institutes of Health

Bethesda, Maryland

Joan Burrelli

Senior Analyst

National Science Foundation

Arlington, Virginia

Roger Chalkley

Senior Associate Dean for Biomedical Research

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Nashville, Tennessee

Joan Chesney

Professor of Pediatrics

University of Tennessee, Memphis

Memphis, Tennessee

Daryl E. Chubin

Senior Policy Officer

National Science Board

National Science Foundation

Arlington, Virginia

Mary Clark

Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs

Harvard Medical School

Boston, Massachusetts

Deborah Cohen

Coordinator of Student and Postdoctoral Training Programs

National Institutes of Health

Office of Education

Bethesda, Maryland

Michael Cowan

Associate Dean for Student Services

Stanford Medical School

Stanford, California

Charles Craig

Interim Associate Dean for Research

West Virginia University

School of Medicine

Morgantown, West Virginia

Kyle Cunningham

Postdoctoral Affairs Coordinator

University of California, Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Rebecca Custer

Program Administrator

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, California

Aphi Daigler

Programs Coordinator

Division of Biological Sciences

University of Chicago

Susan Duby

Director, Division of Graduate Education

National Science Foundation

Arlington, Virginia

Alicia Dustira

Deputy Director, Division of Policy and Education

Department of Health and Human Services

Rockville, Maryland

Seznec Erwan

Scientific Assistant

Embassy of France

Washington, DC

Di Fang

Manager of Demographic and Workforce Studies

Association of American Medical Colleges

Washington, DC

Robert Fellows

Professor and Head

University of Iowa College of Medicine

Iowa City, Iowa

Gil Gilbert

Association Dean, Graduate School

Baylor College of Medicine

Houston, Texas

Mary Golladay

Program Director

Human Resources Statistics Program

National Science Foundation

Arlington, Virginia

Sharon Gordon

Director, Office of Education

National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research

National Institutes of Health

Bethesda, Maryland

Michael Gottesman

Deputy Director for Intramural Research

National Institutes of Health

Bethesda, Maryland

Gerald Grunwald

Professor and Associate Dean

College of Graduate Studies

Thomas Jefferson University

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Jong-on Hahm

Director, Committee on Women in Science and Engineering

The National Academies

Washington, DC

Bridgitte Harrison

Coordinator

University of Cincinnati

Cincinnati, Ohio

Robert Hershey

Consulting Engineer

Robert L. Hershey, PE

Washington, DC

Janet Hom

Administrator, Office of Postdoctoral and Graduate Training

Postdoc and Graduate Affairs

Baylor College of Medicine

Houston, Texas

Jack Hsia

Chief, Academic Affairs

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Gaithersburg, Maryland

Martin Ionescu-Pioggia

Officer

Burroughs Wellcome Fund

Research Triangle Park, North Carolina

Eric Iverson

Public Policy Associate

American Society for Engineering Education

Washington, DC

Nirmala Kannankutty

National Science Foundation

Division of Science Resources Studies

Human Resources Statistics Program

Arlington, Virginia

Kevin Kelley

California State University, Long Beach

Department of Biological Sciences

Long Beach, California

Mohammad Khoshnevisan

National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research

National Institutes of Health

Bethesda, Maryland

Lisa Kozlowski

Post Doc Fellow

Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, Maryland

Jean Labus

Sr. Personnel Representative

Postdoctoral Program Coordinator

Eli Lilly Company

Indianapolis, Indiana

Susan Lord

National Institutes of Health

Deputy Director, Training and Education

National Cancer Institute Clinical Division

Bethesda, Maryland

Robert Mahley

President

The J. David Gladstone Institutes

San Francisco, California

Mary McCormick

Senior Program Analyst

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Chevy Chase, Maryland

Richard McGee

Associate Dean for Student Affairs

Mayo Graduate School

Rochester, Minnesota

Linda Meadows

Assistant VP for Research

Ohio State University

Columbus, Ohio

Vid Mohan-Ram

Science Writer

Science's Next Wave

1200 New York Avenue, NW

Washington, DC

You-Hyun Moon

Science Counselor

Korean Embassy

Washington, DC

Mayumi Naramura

Visiting Fellow

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

National Institutes of Health

Rockville, Maryland

Norine Noonan

Assistant Administrator

Research and Development

US Environmental Protection Agency

Washington, DC

Joel Oppenheim

Associate Dean, Director

Sackler Institute, New York University

School of Medicine

New York, New York

Roslyn Orkin

Assistant Dean for Faculty Affairs

Harvard Medical School

Boston, Massachusetts

Sonia Ortega

Program Director

National Science Foundation

Division of Graduate Education

Arlington, Virginia

Arti Patel

Pre-Doctoral Intramural Research Training Award Program

National Institute of Environmental Sciences

Research Triangle Park, North Carolina

Trevor Penning

Associate Dean

Postdoctoral Research Training

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philip Perlman

Associate Dean, Southwest Grad School

University of Texas Southwest Medical Center

Dallas, Texas

Michael Princiotta

Post Doc Fellow

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

National Institutes of Health

Bethesda, Maryland

Stephen Quigley

Science Policy and Management Consultant

Washington, DC

Rao Mrinalini

Associate Dean, Graduate College

University of Illinois at Chicago

Chicago, Illinois

Alan Rapoport

Senior Analyst

Division of Science Resources Studies

National Science Foundation

Arlington, Virginia

Ian Reynolds

Department of Pharmacology

The University of Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Susan Rich

Director, Office of Postdoc Education

Emory University School of Medicine

Atlanta, Georgia

Robert Rich

Manager, Professional Services

American Chemical Society

Washington, DC

Monique Rijnkels

President, Postdoctoral Association

Baylor College of Medicine

Houston, Texas

John Russell

Associate Dean of Graduate Education

Washington University Medical School

St. Louis, Missouri

Walter Schaffer

National Institutes of Health

Research Training Officer

Bethesda, Maryland

Dennis Shields

Professor, Developmental and Molecular Biology

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Bronx, New York

Allan Shipp

Assistant Vice President

Biomedical and Health Science Research

Association of American Medical Colleges

Washington, DC

Charles Shuler

Director and Professor

University of Southern California

Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology

Los Angeles, California

Chris Simmons

Federal Relations Officer

Association of American Universities

Washington, DC

Patricia Sokolove

Associate Dean, Graduate School

University of Maryland, Baltimore

Baltimore, Maryland

Peter Syverson

Vice President

Research and Information Services

Council of Graduate Sciences

Washington, DC

Michael Teitelbaum

Program Director

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

New York, New York

Philippe Tondeur

Director

Division of Mathematical Sciences

National Science Foundation

Arlington, Virginia

Jim Voytuk

Project Officer

Office of Scientific Engineering and Personnel

The National Academies

Washington, DC

Robin Wagner

Associate Director of Graduate Services

Career and Placement Services

University of Chicago

Chicago, Illinois

Valerie Williams

RAND Corporation

Washington, DC

Pauline Wong

Post Doc Fellow

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Biological Chemical Department

Baltimore, Maryland

Letitia Yao

Research Associate

University of Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Jonathan Yewdell

Chief, Cellular Biology Section

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

National Institutes of Health

Bethesda, Maryland

Tamara Zemlo

Policy Analyst

Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

Bethesda, Maryland

Janet Zinser

Associate Director, School of Medicine

Office of Postdoc Programs

University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Daniel Zuckerman

President, Johns Hopkins Postdoc Association

School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University

Baltimore, Maryland