2010 Life Sciences Salary Survey

For the first time in The Scientist's Salary Survey 10-year history, there has been a dip in salaries over the last year as universities cut bonuses, enforce furloughs, drag out hiring freezes, and even ask faculty members to take one for the team by accepting salary cuts. And with the rising costs of living and operating a lab, it's not welcome news for anyone.

In 2006, husband-and-wife scientific duo Gia Voeltz and Brian DeDecker moved to Boulder, Colorado, from Boston, Massachusetts, to take up faculty positions as molecular biologists at the University of Colorado. Transitioning from postdoc salaries to two faculty incomes, "I thought we'd have a lot more expendable income," laughs Voeltz, a biologist at UC. Instead, daycare for two little ones, running upwards of $2,500 per month, and a mortgage for a home in downtown Boulder sucks up most of their collective income, leaving little to stash away for future expenses like college tuition for their kids. "There are plenty of people in the country feeling a lot more pain than us," DeDecker says, "but we're not putting away a nest egg, so that's kind of unsettling."

And it's not just the cost of living that's on the rise, but the cost of doing science as well. When biophysicist Mary Dickinson moved from Pasadena, California, to Houston, Texas, to take up a job at Baylor College of Medicine, she welcomed the drop in cost of living, happily trading in a 1,100-square-foot townhouse for a 3,000-square-foot single family lake-shore home with a pool for about two-thirds the price. But even living in a cheaper part of the country hasn't protected her lab from rising operational costs. "We're writing more grants than we ever have," she says. "Now instead of one to two grants to run a modest-size lab, people need three or four to keep pace."

"I didn't originally think I would need another R01 grant, but now I do," agrees Voeltz, who spends at least 20 percent of her time writing grants. "I won't survive on one much longer, and I don't even have a large lab."

Still, scientists--generally creative and resourceful folk--are making the most of the situation. This year, postdocs, the most strapped scientists of all, are getting extra creative, while tenured professors are reevaluating their retirement options. And since incomes tend to be greater in areas of the country with high costs of living, scientists seem to make ends meet no matter where they live.

This year's Salary Survey saw drops in salaries across the board. Almost every specialty suffered a setback, some with dips as large as $20,000 (ecology) and $28,000 (virology). A few select fields bucked the trend, however, posting salary increases this year: bioinformatics, biophysics, biotechnology, and neuroscience. It isn't always easy to determine why these specialties saw salary raises while others saw cuts, but researchers in each field can speculate.

"There have been increasing requirements in NIH RFAs for informatics components in large projects," says Mark Musen, head of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research at Stanford University. And the continued surge in high-throughput experiments has departments around the country increasing their demand for employees who can manage and interpret the data, which may be adding to the jump in bioinformatics salaries, adds Musen. "I've noticed this year that start-up packages for new faculty members in biomedical informatics have been enormously generous because the competition is so intense," he says. "It doesn't surprise me that [The Scientist's] salary data reflect this situation."

As for the spike in neuroscience, it "could just be a boring, random, statistical bump," says Barry Connors, chair of the neuroscience department at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. "On the other hand, it is clear that the field of neuroscience has enjoyed a steady increase in popularity over the past two decades, and this trend is continuing." Over the years, universities have morphed physiology and anatomy departments into neuroscience and neurobiology departments, says Connors, which might contribute to the upward trend. "The field is hot," he says.

Almost all professional levels in the life sciences are feeling the recent financial pinch, but there is one demographic group that always feels it--postdoctoral fellows. Currently, postdocs receiving federal awards make between $37,740 to $52,068 a year, depending on a fellow's level of experience. In some areas around the country, that may be sufficient, but in cities at the high end of the cost-of-living spectrum, that's barely enough for Ramen noodles and coffee. Here are some tips from postdocs who've learned to scrape by.

Grease your chain

When Rachel Ruhlen joined the University of Illinois, Chicago as a postdoc in 2003, her husband quit his job to care for their 8-year-old child. Strapped for cash, the family couldn't afford a second car payment, so she took to the streets on a bike. "It turned out to be one of the best things I've ever done," says Ruhlen, who spent 7 years as a postdoc prior to finally landing a job this June as a research assistant professor at the A.T. Sill Research Institute in Kirksville, Missouri. "I lost weight; I'm not polluting," she says, recommending the practice to any postdoc, in a city or not. "We don't ever plan to buy a second car."

Find an odd job (and we mean odd)

In 2003, as a starting postdoc at Georgetown University, Ian Brooks was making $35,000. "I thought I'd hit it big because my grad school stipend was $20,000," says Brooks. "Then I found out that $35,000 a year in DC doesn't mean diddly-squat." To make some extra cash, Brooks, a drummer, started playing bar gigs in bands a couple nights per week. Then, after being mistaken for a bouncer while waiting for a date outside a bar, he took on the occasional security job, working the door at bars and small events. It worked well, "I would make $80-100 for standing around outside an art gallery and making sure no undesirables tried to sneak in for free wine," says Brooks, "although I did once or twice have to explain black eyes and grazes at work." Brooks went on to do a second postdoc in Memphis, Tennessee, and is now a bioinformatics program manager.

Don't be afraid of handouts

When Ruhlen could no longer afford to send her daughter to private school, she went in search of a scholarship and secured one that had been donated to the school by another family. "She was able to stay in private school for a couple more years, then transitioned to public school," says Ruhlen. If something is worthwhile, especially for your children, don't be afraid to look for outside financing, she suggests. Later, when Ruhlen's daughter wanted to go to a Spanish-language summer camp, Ruhlen encouraged her to apply for a grant. "She got it and had a really great time."

As institutions bear the brunt of the current financial crisis, even tenured scientists near the end of their careers, those with contracted salaries, are feeling the effects. And in response, they're digging in their heels.

"There's an incentive to keep a salary coming in," says James Bassingthwaighte, a tenured bioengineer at the University of Washington in Seattle, "especially when my retired friends express concerns that their income shrivels with the market downturns."

"Most investment plans are essentially going nowhere at this point," agrees David Kessel, a tenured professor of pharmacology at Wayne Sate University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan. "The inducement to avoid retirement is three-fold: investment plans flat, health insurance costs increasing and, for those with tenure, no inducements to leave."

Helene Hill, an 81-year-old professor at New Jersey Medical School, says she would have liked to retire at age 75, but is sticking around, in part because of her salary. "I think it is a great benefit that those of us with tenure have, that we can keep on working," she says. "[The] only thing is that it's important not to become dead wood."