Best Places to Work : Postdocs 2009

Only moments after emerging from the plane, exhausted from his 23-hour flight, plant microbiologist Andry Andriankaja was met at the Dallas–Ft. Worth airport by a driver from the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation. They traveled two hours to the Ardmore, Oklahoma, campus and to temporary housing set aside for Andriankaja until he found his own apartment.

"I knew Noble Foundation through its publications and research, but I didn't know much about Oklahoma," says Andriankaja. International travel was not new to Andriankaja, who hop-scotched from his native Madagascar to France for graduate school before landing in Oklahoma. But he still recalls his anxiety about what to expect from his latest big move to the Noble Foundation, which placed fourth in The Scientist's seventh annual Best Places to Work—Postdocs survey.

The following day, a Foundation staffer drove Andriankaja around town, helping him set up his bank account and walking him through his first trip to an American grocery store. With "all the basic things [covered], I could move on and get focused on my research," Andriankaja says. By day three, he was off to a conference with his advisor.

Andriankaja is one of many postdocs to make a gutsy move for a new position. A 2005 Sigma Xi survey of 7,600 postdocs working in the United States found that 54% of postdocs hold temporary visas, and of these, more than 76% received their doctorate abroad.

Survey respondents often rank the quality of an institution's facilities and infrastructure as most important, followed by salary and networking opportunities. But for foreign postdocs, navigating complicated immigration laws, mastering a new language, and adjusting to a different culture add to the challenges of attaining career goals. This year's top-ranking institutions recognize that international postdocs need support both in and out of the lab.

For Boston native Cliff Brangwynne, the high quality of research and the opportunity for vibrant collaborations between top scientists enticed him to complete a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics—ranked number one for institutions outside of the United States. An international postdoc has the opportunity to get feedback from people whose "ways of looking at the world can be so fundamentally different" from his own, he says. (Another attraction was the adventure of living in Dresden, Germany with his wife during a period of historical rebuilding in the city.) Brangwynne says the multicultural environment of his lab was similar to what he experienced during graduate school in the United States, but in Dresden, even the simplest tasks outside the lab became challenging, from mailing a letter at the post office to setting up the internet at home. The international office made things easier by taking care of "all the paperwork related to our work in Germany" and sending someone with him when he needed to register his motorcycle.

To support international postdocs, the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, ranked No. 10 among international institutions, holds quarterly day-long seminars for foreign postdocs addressing everything from Swedish healthcare and social insurance to training on effective communication with Swedes. Informal English as a Second Language classes are also held for postdocs and their families at Argonne National Laboratories (ranked No. 13 in the US). At Fred Hutchison Cancer Center, which ranked 14th this year, incoming postdocs are matched with volunteer researchers from their country or region of origin to help with the adjustment.

By far, the greatest issues foreign postdocs face while working in the United States are visa and immigration laws, says Jeremy Spohr, international officer for the National Postdoc Association (NPA). International postdocs need help both in obtaining a visa to enter the country and maintaining their visa status while in the country.

Hatice Bilgic traveled from her native Turkey to complete a postdoc at 10th ranked University of Minnesota on a three-year academic exchange (J1) visa. Nearing the expiration of her first visa, a second advisor at the university paid for the processing of paperwork for Bilgic's professional work visa (H-1B), which lasts up to six years—a service that universities and institutions are not required to provide.

According to Maureen Murphy, a postdoc administrator at 12th-ranked Fox Chase Cancer Center, roughly one-third to one-half of foreign postdocs who come in on the academic exchange visa receive their H-1B visas during their postdocs. Footing the bill is "our institution's way of saying we want this person," says Murphy.

As president of the University of Minnesota's postdoc association last year, Bilgic argued that foreign postdocs need even more support for visa issues. In response, the University of Minnesota started offering a seminar on visa options after postdoc positions end, which more than 200 postdocs attended.

Regardless of where they come from, postdocs around the world face diminishing academic prospects. As the average ages for first R01 grants and assistant professor positions increase, along with concerns about the economic future, postdocs are "staying in their positions longer than ever before," and looking for non-academic science careers, according to Stacy Gelhaus, Chair of the NPA's board of directors.

A recent survey of postdocs at the University of Pennsylvania found that 41% planned to pursue nonacademic careers. "It's obvious that postdocs are seeing their mentors spending all this time writing grants that aren't being funded, and they are beginning to [question the] reward in academia," says Kryste Ferguson, a postdoc administrator at the University of Pennsylvania who worked on the survey. In response, many top institutions are incorporating programs to help postdocs develop additional skill sets, on top of helping them apply for grants.

A UK effort to help equip postdocs with marketable skills outside of academia led to the hiring of a certified career counselor who teaches seminars in financial and people management, negotiation and marketing at the University of York—ranked fifth internationally. At seventh-place Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) in Seattle, postdocs can apply for one-year fellowships to work as science consultants for an investment group called Accelerator Corp., where they use their expertise to help choose which biotech start-ups to fund. "It's an immersive kind of fellowship where you come in with potentially no [industry] experience and [are] plopped right into the middle of it," Lee Pang, a postdoc at ISB, says. "You essentially learn by high-grade osmosis." To help postdocs without access to the classroom polish their teaching skills, Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, plans to give the option of teaching courses at the University of Montana within the next year.

Of course, for international postdocs, none of that career training is useful without the upfront help they need when adjusting to their new positions. "My friends are jealous," says Andriankaja of the attention and support he receives from Noble. Even now, as Andriankaja plans for a new position in chemical company BASF in Belgium, The Noble Foundation continues to guide him in visa issues. "I'm a lucky guy," he says.

Correction: In the original version of the Top 40 list of US institutions, No. 6 Novartis in Cambridge MA, incorrectly listed "Networking Opportunities" as both a strength and weakness. Novartis' second strength is its quality of infrastructure and its second weakness is training and mentoring. The Scientist regrets the error.

The learning experience through my post-doc has been amazing; wow I can do a lot of cool new experiments...wow, I am so much smarter now, I can clone a sheep! Yikes! My friends are always awe struck when they talk to me and I spill out some cool scientific terms for everything they do. Irony aside, yes I feel good about knowing "stuff" but did all of that help me pay the bills at home? Is it helping me save for my children's college? Best of all, did it promise me a great job? What is the problem with a lot of us in our 30s already? Academic jobs are saturated, there are more post-docs leaving than available jobs. We are expected to do, in many cases, a $80k+ job, according to Industry standards. For what?! $35k a year? With a family of 4? Yeah maybe $35-40k a year doesn't sound so bad when you are single and have no commitments at home. But the story is different when you are trying to raise a family and deal with 60+ hours of work a week. Jobs these days are expecting more and more out of us. Bring in daycare costs for two children!! Starting to smell the reality for a lot of us? Remember, women also stay viable for children up to a certain age! What most would call "evil necessities to score the next big job" is in fact destroying the concept of having a functional family, or life altogether. Next time you call life sitting on a desk for over 60 h a week writing your next big grant, a part of your life, ask that same question to your spouse. The truth for a lot of us is that your spouse only sees that you work all the damn time and yet we keep struggling to pay the bills, even while living frugally. This is not what was sold to me when I was a young pup out of high school. It is amazing to see that even after all the hard work, of getting straight "A+"s and sucking up all the crap from grad school, bad egos, lab mates with bad work ethic (e.g., people doing Facebook all day)that Academic degrees don't really prepare you for real World problems and jobs, that is unless you decide that Academic research is what you always wanted. Yes you do learn essential skills such as presenting data to an audience, thinking critically, designing projects, executing them, etc but when you get to search for jobs outside of academia and the industry your skills all at sudden do not seem to match the needs of the employer for everyone wants 3-5+ years of professional experience or knowledge in an extremely obscure piece of old software that nobody wants to deal with! Where the hell do we get those years of experience if we can't even get to the interviews?

I still love science and everything that it stands for but the concept of slavery needs to end. We should be rewarded for our efforts in a predictable and fair manner; those who sit at work doing nothing related to their actual jobs, need to be kicked out of the work force for they degrade the mood of those who actually work around them.

I would have to sadly agree that science is not placed on its deserving pedestal by the public. It is seen as too complicated or obscure to be relevant. It is up to all of us to try to promote the value of science. Therefore, it is not marketable, therefore little money for funding and few positions. However, universities make big money from students and grad students. There should really be a better communication of the lifestyle and outlook for a PhD, and an active discouragement for students who are unsure and take the PhD route by default. A masters or BSc would be much more useful to these students. I also agree I would advise my children against it, UNLESS, they naturally want to research, and consider it almost as a hobby. In that a person who finds a job they love, while not paid fairly, would still be happy. It is a tragic irony that the workers who advance technology and contribute to the long range benefit of humanity are treated amoungst the worst in terms of job security, self worth, income, stability etc...

One simple question for those PIs, would you recommend your son/daughter to go to grad school and then postdoc in physical or biological science?

I am a postdoc. I would persuade my son/daughter from doing that by every means if he/she wants to do so.

PIs just want to have as many as grad students and then as many as postdocs since they are cheap labors. Therefore when you decide where to go after graduation from undergraduate colleges, they try their best (describe the career like a heaven and emphasize how beautiful it is to solve the so-called important problems) to cheat those young people to follow this route, waste 7 or 8 years being a grad student/post and then become their permanent salves some times later. They never care about your career, what you will do in 10 years etc.

The PhD training system in the US needs to be changed significantly. They should reduce the number of grad student greatly at least 10 times. Actually there are very, very few academic positions available for those young bright grad students. And the work you did during PhD and postdoc is usually useless for you to find a job in the industry. They are totally a waste of time. For most of industrial jobs, what you need is a BS, or no more than a MS.

If you want to live an easier, better paid and low-pressure life, stay away from postdoc. Stay away from Science, especially from physics and biology. You will be much easier to become successful if you choose Computer, Law, Medicine and Engineering etc.

Boy, I wish YOU were my advisor when I did my PhD, because my experience and my "advisor" at that time were completely opposite to how you described yourself and your colleagues at your institution. However, I'll be more than willing to bet that PI's like you are an ever-decreasing minority of the PI's, now that the competitions for grants have become even fiercer, partly due to the deep recession. With more candidates competing for fewer postdoc positions, also, the time could not be more ripe for the unscruplous PI's to be even more unscruplous than before, capitalizing on the circumstance. Sometimes when pursuing a modest dream of becoming an assistant professor at even a non-prestigious, public, research university seems like chasing after clouds, then it's just not worth all the troubles, pains, and risks.

I have been following this thread regarding non satisfaction with postocs, I am a PI and Associate Professor. I must address a few points mentioned below because it really irritates me, obviously this person has had a bad experience.

I see postdoctoral training as the time for polishing yourself both scientifically but probably equally as importantly, your maturity and interpersonal skills. No one can do this for you except you at that level. I don't know how many times I've told postdocs that are applying for tenure track positions that this isn't about your science really (you wouldn't be selected for interviewing if your science wasn't good already), this is about you as a person and how you interact with other people. Does the department where the person is interviewing really want a bitter arrogant person in the office next to them every day for the next 20 years? No, they want a colleague that is easy to work with on all levels.

This person should be thankful that they are able to work in a dynamic lab with other multiple postdocs and grad students. Many programs are hurting financially now and number of personnel has dwindled in many formerly very successful labs led by intelligent people. Most upwardly mobile postdocs jump at the chance to help a grad student out to maximize their co-authored peer reviewed publications and to provide training to these younger scientists. It is also great you get a chance to edit grad student's documents and help them in a bigger way. I am pretty sure the PI had to do this exclsively when he/she started their first lab. Be thankful you get a chance to "be on the other side of the fence" and help these other lab members out. Be thankful they respect you enough to ask for your help and comments. Be thankful you were born with superior intelligence compared to most and have at least made it this far in your life.

I am sorry but I also have to disagree that the PI does nothing except use people (at least vast majority of the PIs I know do not operate like this). I make every attempt to talk to each one of my employees every single day at all levels (undergrad, grad, and postdocs) if nothing more, to ask them how their life is going. I write letter after letter for job applications for them, awards they are nominated for, fellowships, immigration documents, etc. I am constantly looking for new programs to apply for funding, writing reviews and book chapters or serving as editor, reviewing papers for journals, grants, serving on all sorts of university and graduate student committees, etc. I rely on postdocs to help do a lot of the hands on day to day training in the lab for the grad students while I try to keep the grant machine running. What is wrong with that? The PI has spent their entire career doing science hands on, writing grants, publishing papers, dealing with politics, etc. in order to provide an environment for new students and postdocs to do science. Perhaps they ask a lot of people at times, but most PIs I know are working minimum of 60 hours/week themselves. They aren't off playing golf while everyone in the lab is slaving away.

On a related note, I personally encourage postdocs to be co-PI on my grants (especially if they can contribute to it intellectually) in order to give them experience in this area and always make the deal with them that if they get an academic position, they can take a significant portion of funds with them to help start their program. Do I ask them to help update background sections of the grant and do a lot of the writing? Does it make my life easier? Absolutely, but I think its good for them. How else are they ever going to really get solid grant writing experience unless they do a lot of writing and then work with me for the edits and parts they aren't familiar with so much? And, I think they are getting a pretty good deal out of it because it truly is their grant too and can help them get a job.

Regarding salary, minimum postdoc salary in my department is 40K. Most are making more. These are molecular lab type people and the ones doing computer science type projects typically make much more. Isn't the NIH standard minimum close to 40k now? I do realize that in some cases, some of the more famous PIs pay a pittance to postdocs. I turned down a postdoc at a prestigious place with a prestigious person I idolized who wanted to pay me very very low. So, I do know it happens. My advice to someone who isn't satisfied with their position, their PI, or their salary is to leave. Easier said than done I know. Postdoc time is not for the faint hearted or ones who think that a 40 hour work week is going to be enough. Postdocs are typically salaried employees and this means they need to work enough to get the job done (so are the PIs). There are many postdocs working a ton of hours and publishing a lot of papers. The reality of this is that you will be competing with these people for jobs. If you truly are going to lead your own program some day, suck it up for a few years, work hard, publish a lot of papers as co author and first author and count your blessings beause believe me, life as a PI is no bed of roses and I work more now than ever doing less of what I love, Science, and more of what I don't.

Whoever you are, Professor, Principal Investigator (PI), Post-Doc, I think, you'll agree with me that working in an Academic setting, Information, must be based on Concrete, Real, Hard, Substanciated Evidences. While, as a person, I can totally respect your point of view, based, I suppose, on your own experience, it is imperative though, to widen our horizon and learn about Realities lived in person by Real Scholars.
It can dramatically change your conclusions on this matter.
First of all, let me give You just a few references you may want to look into. The first: 'Strangers in a Strange Land' The Scientist, Oct. 1, 2001. It is about the exploitation of Foreign Post-Docs by their employers. The second one: 'Staffing for Science' The Scientist, March 29, 2004. I just bring to Your attention a few lines of this article:....'In private industry, successful employees are rewarded with promotions. In Academic labs, successful Post-Docs are given low wages, poor benefits and encouraged to leave'.

Having been on that 'train', I can confirm what is reported there, word for word. I had been in a quite prestigious old State University of the East Coast, in a lab I would not suggest anybody.
To use the words of a Faculty Advisor who unsuccesfully dealt with issues I had there: 'You ended up in the Worst Place with the Worst people'
'The people', in this case, were Principal Investigators and Professors of varios rank, totally lacking of Integrity, Honesty, Responsibility, Experience and Competence for professionally performing their duty. I imagine, 'people' like that must have previously been "the Post-docs having a grossly over-inflated sense of their worth" that You mention in Your Comment. But the Smartest and the Brightest Post-Docs do not belong to that group. For Sure! I had Post-Doc colleagues not so talented with the same 'over-inflated sense of their worth' you talk about. They transitioned to Faculty positions much earlier and easier than very talented Post-Docs. They were helped in the Transition by Unscrupolous PI, with their same low values, who did all they could to arrest, delay, damage the career of the VERY Talented and Intelligent Post-Docs Scholars, who represented a threat to them. Only who intimately knows and feels to be not so great, beside all the titles and publications record, may fear to be overcome or overshadowed by Real Talent. Real Talent does not have at all this sort of fear. Don't You Agree?

Then, Good for the Post Docs You describe having at least $40.000/year salary, but I assure You other Realities are very different. Ask around!

Then a comment on your words...'they have no real responsibility other than promoting themselves through their work (usually at the expense of grad students)'.
Wow! Really? You sure? As I could see and experience also 'first hand' the Real, Concrete Responsibility of a Project is almost totally on a Post-Doc. Success and Failure of Projects, in a perfect world, should be on both, PIs' and Post-Docs' shoulders but in reality, unscrupolous PIs take uniquely credits for their Post-Docs' Success, while any Failure is uniquely blamed on their Post-Docs. So, Excuse me what PI's Responsibility are You talking about here? This is not 'sense of Responsibility' at all of PIs? Don't You agree?
Then, I cannot even recall the number of PhD students who were helped by me personally, who were totally left on their own by the same Unscrupolous PIs. I even helped them on weekends or after work hours, correcting, helping them for their thesis, paper, experiments, whatever was needed. Nothing, absolutely nothing came to me from all this extra work, Motivated only by my Compassion for having been there before and understanding the PhDs struggle of working with PI, in some cases, unable to help them for their Scientific incompetence despite the 'high-sounding' titles or record of achievements (mostly built on 'Politics' rather than Science). Please, do not generalize, this is not right. This is NOT JUST! It makes even no sense. A PhD student, usually has not the background or work experience of a Post-Doc Scholar. How could they possibly be an effective help in the Post-Doc projects?

Then, a comment on your last note: ...'Your supposed to be grownups now, so if you want to be treated as respected peers, you should act like it and take responsibility for your own (what should have been informed) choices.'
Well, the real problem here or mistake a Post-Doc can do is to assume that Principal Investigators, Professors, etc. would be 'grownups'. Bacause that can very well be not the case. Unfortunately! From what has been said so far, intelligent readers will have gotten the point easily. If there's somebody or something who/which needs to grow up is the PI and his Competence, Honesty, Integrity, Sense of Responsibility, Professionalism. In the Academic world, with few 'Excellences' apart, there's a lot of work to do in this direction.

Where? Here in the midwest a postdoc typically starts at $24K. It takes >5years to move beyond $40K.

You must be a prof who takes a full advantage of the "lazy and unappreciative" post-docs who have it so easy. Yeah, as long as the grown-up postdocs know how the system works, they better grin and bear it, but never, never challenge the academic serfdom.

Reading these comments, you can't help but have the impression that Post-docs have a grossly over-inflated sense of their worth. It's a pretty easy gig, they get payed well (anyone who thinks that making $40,000+ is bad money needs a reality check) and they have no real responsibility other than promoting themselves through their work (usually at the expense of grad students). Furthermore, everyone of you should have known what the system was when you started, what your pay would be, what your hours would be, etc. If you didn't, you have only yourselves to blame. Your supposed to be grownups now, so if you want to be treated as respected peers, you should act like it and take responsibility for your own (what should have been informed) choices.

I agree with many previous comment. The Scientist should publish the full list to be able to look also at the place that don't make an effort towards their postdoc employees.

I'm missing the survey data. How many people were asked 1, 10, 100 per institution listed? Is this a self-evaluation of the postdocs? Does it include past members of the institution that went through the whole experience and can speak openly.

I'd like to see a paragraph highlighting the place that made a big jump regarding earlier years - a kind of emerging places category.

Some things don't make much sense: Novartis Inst. lists networking as a bad AND a good thing in the institution?

Yep, i agree with the few who have put in their thoughts before me. Most of the post-docs are considered as slaves and are temporary workers. So, technically the bosses do not really have to have a very nice and warm relationship with their post-docs.Also the benefits are really not there, especialy the visa status. Most of the post-docs are international students who get their doctorate degrees in the US and the post-doc positions are either in Universities or National Labs. Both Universities and Labs will not do greencards and try to exploit the postdoc with the NON-PROFIT H1B visa for these purposes. The postdocs can neither get a GC sponsored nor use this H1B to get a job in a company. Total useless H1's that they give to the post-docs.

Disadvantages of being a post-doc are numerous. Hope someone takes notice and brings some form of fair salary structure, benefits, and standard visa status atleast to maintain the edge US has in Science. I am already seeing a slow migration of the scientific community to other parts of the world from US, which is going to be a big disadv for US in future.

After struggling to get their doctorate degrees, we feel that we have accomplished something for the love of science, but in the end we get the short end of the stick.
Far less benefits than someone who had worked in a company for the period we took to complete graduate school (MS, PhD) and postdoc (amounts to atleast 7-8yrs of experience for a person with Bachelors degree).
If i had a time machine, i would have definitely taken a job right after my bachelors. Just because it saves lots of time, and the sacrifices and sleepless nights during qualifiers, various lab experiments and defense are JUST NOT WORTH IT.
I definitely would advise someone to think million times, re-think another million times before signing in for ?What a Waste of Time 101?, ?Slavery 202? ?It Does Not Pay You Good 301? and ?Non-doctorate friends all have settled in their career, while you are stuck 401?

It's a great article, sure! It is always good to talk of a topic which is so crucial for the life of PhD, who might unfortunately see all their life projects, career and ambitions fade away or been literally destroyed by the wrong post-doc experience with the wrong mentor. I agree with all, that reporting cases of terrible post-doc experiences would help others to avoid the labs/ Univerities/Institutions responsible of misconduct.

One important issue, however, has not been touched by the article. It concerns the fact that mostly the greatest obstacle or impediments in transitioning from Post Doc to Faculty positions are placed by the Mentors. The Brightest the Post-Doc, the hardest the Transition for Him/Her.
In recruiting Brilliant Foreign Post-Docs, more easily exploitable, because less informed overall on the US Academic System and Transitioning, Unscrupolous Mentors are provided of an additional tool for controlling their Post-Doc Career move. Jealousy, Envy of the Exceptional Achievements of their own Post-Docs can make some Mentors act in very mean, unbeliavable, uncorrect manners. Cases like these should be talked about much, much more than they usually are. Somewhere, I had read an article whose title was something like this: "The Smart and the Brightest, what's wrong with that?" Situations like these, I'm talking about, should be brought to the public eye
with great courage, any time they happen. I see that public attention on these issues, would be the only way to reduce their occurrence. If kept in hiding, they'll grow esponentially. Only responsible, open, information can help the life, career, ambitions of Post Docs, either, Foreign or National

[Regardless of where they come from, postdocs around the world face diminishing academic prospects. As the average ages for first R01 grants and assistant professor positions increase, along with concerns about the economic future, postdocs are "staying in their positions longer than ever before," and looking for non-academic science careers, according to Stacy Gelhaus, Chair of the NPA's board of directors.]

I guess this explains why more and more fresh PhDs don't think postdoc work (indentured servitude after grad school) is worth all the trouble.

Maybe it would be good to have an article pointing out the reasons some institutes did not rate highly in the survey. I don't think the institutions should be named but being able to compare the good with the bad would be a good tool for students and post-docs. It would provide a way to get an idea of what to watch out for when applying for jobs.

I think this survey serves as an excellent tool for graduate students and first time postdocs to consider many factors before accepting an offer. Institutions should provide as much support as possible to facilite networking, mentorship, and a rewarding research environment.

Perhaps you should not only recognize the high achievers but also list the worst places to work in an effort to push them to improve.

"... survey of 7,600 postdocs working in the United States found that 54% of postdocs hold temporary visas, and of these, more than 76% received their doctorate abroad."

Do the numbers reflect

A) a genuine shortage of the domestic doctorate-awardees,

B) a genuine shortage of the domestic doctorate-awardees interested in a postdoc work,

C) a preferential hiring of the foreign over the domestic doctorate-awardees as postdocs by the U.S. labs because the former are more qualified,

D) because the foreign postdocs are more diligent and dedicated workers, or

E) because the foreign postdocs are more controllable, or

F) because the foreign postdocs are more exploitable?