First rule of Science Mentor Club

The very first rule of PI/mentorship is get your trainees first author publications.

This is the thing of biggest lasting career impact that you can determine almost with absolute control.

Yes, things happen but if you are not getting the vast majority of your trainees first author pubs you are screwing up as a mentor.

So. 2017 is about to start. Do you have a publication plan for all of your postdocs and later-stage graduate students?

Obviously I am in favor of active management of trainees’ publishing plans. I assume some favor a more hands-off approach?

“Let the postdoc figure it out” has an appeal. Makes them earn those pubs and sets them up for later hard times.

The problem is, if they fail to get a publication, or enough, their career takes a bad hit. So ability to grunt it out isn’t ever used.

Overtime rules

So. A federal judge* managed to put a hold on Obama’s move to increase the threshold for overtime exemption. Very likely any challenge to this will fail to succeed before a new Administration takes over the country. Most would bet there will be no backing for Obama’s plans under the new regime.

NIH is planning to steam ahead with their NRSA salary guidelines that met the Obama rule. Workplaces are left in a quandary. Many have announced their policies and issued notification of raises to some employees. Now they are not being forced to do so, at the last hour.

My HR department has signaled no recent changes in plans. Postdocs will get raises up to the Obama threshold. There are some other categories affected but I’ve seen no announcement of any hold on those plans either.

How about you folks? What are your various HR departments going to do in light of the de facto halt on Obama’s plans!

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*activist judge

Grant Supplements and Diversity Efforts

The NIH announced an “encouragement” for NIMH BRAINI PIs to apply for the availability of Research Supplements to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research (Admin Supp).

Administrative supplements for those who are unaware, are extra amounts of money awarded to an existing NIH grant. These are not reviewed by peer reviewers in a competitive manner. The decision lies entirely with Program Staff*. The Diversity supplement program in my experience and understanding amounts to a fellowship- i.e., mostly just salary support – for a qualifying trainee. (Blog note: Federal rules on underrepresentation apply….this thread will not be a place to argue about who is properly considered an underrepresented individual, btw.) The BRANI-directed the encouragement lays out the intent:

The NIH diversity supplement program offers an opportunity for existing BRAIN awardees to request additional funds to train and mentor the next generation of researchers from underrepresented groups who will contribute to advancing the goals of the BRAIN Initiative. Program Directors/Principal Investigators (PDs/PIs) of active BRAIN Initiative research program grants are thus encouraged to identify individuals from groups nationally underrepresented to support and mentor under the auspices of the administrative supplement program to promote diversity. Individuals from the identified groups are eligible throughout the continuum from high school to the faculty level. The activities proposed in the supplement application must fall within the scope of the parent grant, and both advance the objectives of the parent grant and support the research training and professional development of the supplement candidate. BRAIN Initiative PDs/PIs are strongly encouraged to incorporate research education activities that will help prepare the supplement candidate to conduct rigorous research relevant to the goals of the BRAIN Initiative

I’ll let you read PA-16-288 for the details but we’re going to talk generally about the Administrative Supplement process so it is worth reprinting this bit:

Administrative supplement, the funding mechanism being used to support this program, can be used to cover cost increases that are associated with achieving certain new research objectives, as long as the research objectives are within the original scope of the peer reviewed and approved project, or the cost increases are for unanticipated expenses within the original scope of the project. Any cost increases need to result from making modifications to the project that would increase or preserve the overall impact of the project consistent with its originally approved objectives and purposes.

Administrative supplements come in at least three varieties, in my limited experience. [N.b. You can troll RePORTER for supplements using “S1” or “S2” in the right hand field for the Project Number / Activity Code search limiter. Unfortunately I don’t think you get much info on what the supplement itself is for.] The support for underrepresented trainees is but one category. There are also topic-directed FOAs that are issued now and again because a given I or C wishes to quickly spin up research on some topic or other. Sex differences. Emerging health threats. Etc. Finally, there are those one might categorize within the “unanticipated expenses” and “increase or preserve the overall impact of the project” clauses in the block I’ve quoted above.

I first became aware of the Administrative Supplement in this last context. I was OUTRAGED, let me tell you. It seemed to be a way by which the well-connected and highly-established use their pet POs to enrich their programs beyond what they already had via competition. Some certain big labs seemed to be constantly supplemented on one award or other. Me, I sure had “unanticipated expenses” when I was just getting started. I had plenty of things that I could have used a few extra modules of cash to pay for to enhance the impact of my projects. I did not have any POs looking to hand me any supplements unasked and when I hinted very strongly** about my woes there was no help to be had***. I did not like administrative supplements as practiced one bit. Nevertheless, I was young and still believed in the process. I believed that I needn’t pursue the supplement avenue too hard because I was going to survive into the mid career stretch and just write competing apps for what I needed. God, I was naive.

Perhaps. Perhaps if I’d fought harder for supplements they would have been awarded. Or maybe not.

When I became aware of the diversity supplements, I became an instant fan. This was much more palatable. It meant that at any time a funded PI found a likely URM recruit to science, they could get the support within about 6 weeks. Great for summer research experiences for undergrads, great for unanticipated postdocs. This still seems like a very good thing to me. Good for the prospective trainees. Good for diversity-in-science goals.

The trouble is that from the perspective of the PIs in the audience, this is just another rich-get-richer scheme whereby free labor is added to the laboratory accounts of the already advantaged “haves” of the NIH game. Salary is freed up on the research grants to spend on more toys, reagents or yet another postdoc. This mechanism is only available to a PI who has research grant funding that has a year or more left to run. Since it remains an administrative decision it is also subject to buddy-buddy PI/PO relationship bias. Now, do note that I have always heard from POs in my ICs of closest concern that they “don’t expend all the funds allocated” for these URM supplements. I don’t know what to make of that but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if any PI with a qualified award, who asks for support of a qualified individual gets one. That would take the buddy/buddy part out of the equation for this particular type of administrative supplement.

It took awhile for me to become aware of the FOA version of the administrative supplement whereby Program was basically issuing a cut-rate RFA. The rich still get richer but at least there is a call for open competition. Not like the first variety I discussed whereby it seems like only some PIs, but not others, are even told by the PO that a supplement might be available. This seems slightly fairer to me although again, you have to be in the funded-PI club already to take advantage

There are sometimes competing versions of the FOA for a topic-based supplement issued as well. In one case I am familiar with, both types were issued simultaneously. I happen to know quite a bit about that particular scenario and it was interesting to see the competing variety actually were quite bad. I wished I’d gone in for the competing ones instead of the administrative variety****, let me tell you.

The primary advantage of the administrative supplement to Program, in my viewing, is that it is fast. No need to wait for the grant review cycle. These and the competing supplements are also cheap and can be efficient, because of leverage from the activities and capabilities under the already funded award.

As per usual, I have three main goals with this post. First, if you are an underrepresented minority trainee it is good to be aware of this. Not all PIs are and not all think about it. Not to mention they don’t necessarily know if you qualify for one of these. I’d suggest bringing it up in conversations with a prospective lab you wish to join. Second, if you are a noob PI I encourage you to be aware of the supplement process and to take advantage of it as you might.

Finally, DearReader, I turn to you and your views on Administrative Supplements. Good? Bad? OUTRAGE?

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COI DISCLAIMER: I’ve benefited from administrative supplements under each of the three main categories I’ve outlined and I would certainly not turn up my nose at any additional ones in the future.

*I suppose it is not impossible that in some cases outside input is solicited.

**complained vociferously

***I have had a few enraging conversations long after the fact with POs who said things like “Why didn’t you ask for help?” in the wake of some medium sized disaster with my research program. I keep to myself the fact that I did, and nobody was willing to go to bat for me until it was too late but…whatevs.

****I managed to get all the way to here without emphasizing that even for the administrative supplements you have to prepare an application. It might not be as extensive as your typical competing application but it is much more onerous than Progress Report. Research supplements look like research grants. Fellowship-like supplements look like fellowships complete with training plan.

NINDS tweaks their approach to the F32 / NRSA

NOT-NS-17-002 indicates that NINDS will no longer participate in the NIH-wide parent F32/NRSA funding opportunity because they will be customizing their approach.

 

As previously described in NOT-NS-16-012 and NOT-NS-16-013, NINDS is restructuring its funding support for postdoctoral researchers.  Beginning with the December 8, 2016 due date, research training support for postdoctoral fellows under the F32 activity code will be available through NINDS using PAR-16-458 “NINDS Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) for Training of Postdoctoral Fellows (F32).”  This NINDS F32 will support postdocs who are within the first 3 years of research training in the sponsor’s laboratory, and includes several other key differences from the parent F32. Most notably, applicants are only eligible for the NINDS F32 prior to starting, or within the first 12 months of starting, their postdoctoral training in the sponsor’s laboratory or research environment. Because of the very early application, no preliminary data are expected.  It is anticipated that another Funding Opportunity Announcement for postdocs, which utilizes the K01 activity code, will be published in time for the February 12, 2017 initial receipt date. This will be available to applicants in their second through fourth year of cumulative postdoctoral research experience (see NOT-NS-16-013). 

I remember the initial troll on this but managed to overlook the part where they were going to have a new K01 announcement focused on later-stage postdocs.

I like this, actually. We’ve gotten into a situation where F32s are stuck in the escalating-expectations holding pattern of endless revisions and resubmissions lately. I just don’t see the point of a 3rd year postdoc writing for “training” support that will only arrive in year 4 or 5. Particularly when at that point the postdocs who are gunning hard for a faculty research type job should be focusing on the K99/R01. This has been a waste of time, let the awardees languish for extra time so that they get at least a year or two on the F32 and make a mockery of the idea of the F32.

I am likewise encouraged that instead of leaving the 2+ year postdocs at the tender mercies of the K99/R00 process, NINDS has a fill-in with a K01. I note that their warning notice on this looks good.

The NINDS K01 is intended for candidates with a Ph.D. or equivalent research doctoral degree. Candidates will be eligible to apply for the K01 anytime within the second through fourth year of cumulative mentored, postdoctoral research experience, and may be supported by the NINDS K01 within the first 6 years of cumulative postdoctoral research experience. Successful K01 applications will be designed to facilitate the continuation of outstanding, innovative projects, combined with career development activities that will prepare outstanding postdoctoral, mentored investigators for an independent research career. The K01 application will describe a project that, as demonstrated by preliminary data collected by the applicant, holds promise to result in highly significant results and future discoveries. The K01 candidate will continue to be guided by a postdoctoral mentor, but will be primarily responsible for oversight and conduct of the research project. By the end of the proposed K01 award period, the candidate will be poised to begin an independent research career and will have a well-developed, highly significant project that he/she can take with him/her to an independent research position.

The devil, of course, is in the details. In my most frequent experience, the K01 tends to be won by people already in quasi-faculty positions. People who have been promoted to “Instructor” or “Assistant Research Project Quasi-faculty but not really Scientist” or whatever word salad title your University prefers. I do not see this being favored for award to any old run of the mill year 2 postdoc. Maybe your frame of reference differs, DearReader?

It will be interesting to see how this is used in practice. Will it only be for the people who just-miss on the K99/R00? Or will it occupy the place currently occupied by the F32 with successful applicants having 2-3 years of postdoc work under their belt before applying? [Mayhap these are the same thing these days?]

But I digress.

The most pressing issue of the day is whether the NINDS will succeed in funding 1) a substantial number of F32s from applicants who are finishing their graduate studies and 2) from first year postdocs without much Preliminary Data in the application.

In my estimation if they don’t get to at least 50% of awards on #1, this isn’t working.

I also predict that the #2 scenario is going to produce a lot of applications with lots of Preliminary Data, just stuff that wasn’t completed directly by the applicant herself.

Thoughts folks? Would you like to see this extended to your favorite ICs?

Postdoc salaries and reinforcer value

One issue I’ve heard raised is that some PIs like to use salary differentials to reward the “good postdocs” with bonus pay.

Given the behaviorist education that lurks in my background, I am theoretically* in support of this notion.

The new salary rules may minimize such flexibility in the future.

Are you aware of labs in which merit of postdocs as interpreted by the PI leads to salary differentials?

Is this a legitimate complaint about the overtime rules?

Will PIs use the permission to work overtime (and be paid for it) as a workaround for merit pay?
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*Given my distaste for workplace bias and desire to be a fair manager, I have never used merit to decide postdoc pay. I stick to NRSA schedules and to institutional adjustments as appropriate.

Collins announces NRSA salaries will meet Obama’s overtime rule

In a piece on HuffPo, NIH Director Francis Collins announces the NIH response to Obama’s new rules on overtime for salaried employees. Collins:

Under the new rule, which was informed by 270,000 public comments, the threshold will be increased to $47,476 effective December 1, 2016. ….In response to the proposed FLSA revisions, NIH will increase the awards for postdoctoral NRSA recipients to levels above the threshold.

“levels”. Meaning, presumably the entire scale will start around $47.5K and move upward with years of postdoctoral experience, as the NRSA scale usually does.

What about the larger population of postdocs that are paid from non-NRSA funds, Dr. Collins?

..we recognize that research institutions that employ postdocs will need to readjust the salaries they pay to postdocs that are supported through other means, including other types of NIH research grants. While supporting the increased salaries will no doubt present financial challenges to NIH and the rest of the U.S. biomedical research enterprise, we plan to work closely with leaders in the postdoc and research communities to find creative solutions to ensure a smooth transition.

Imprecise and highly disappointing when it comes to the postdocs supported on “other types of NIH research grants”. This would have been a great opportunity to state that the NIH expects any postdocs paid from RPGs to be on the NRSA scale, wouldn’t it? Most postdocs are supported on NIH grants. This Rock Talk post shows in FY2009 something like 11,000 basic biomed postdocs on Federal research grants and only 1,000 on Federal fellowships and training grants (and ~7,800 on nonFederal support). So Francis Collins is talking the happy talk about 10% of the postdocs who work for him and throwing 90% into the storm.

The OER head, Michael Lauer, has a few more interesting points on the Open Mike blog.

Institutions that employ postdocs through non-NRSA support can choose how to follow the new rule. They may choose to carefully track their postdocs’ hours and pay overtime. Or, keeping with the fact that biomedical research – as in many professional and scientific careers – does not fit into neatly defined hourly shifts, institutions can choose to raise salaries to the new FLSA salary threshold or above it, if they do not yet pay postdocs at or above that level.

This would imply that Dr. Collins’ supposed plan to “work closely with” and “ensure a smooth transition” is more realistically interpreted as “hey, good luck with the new Obama regs, dudes”.

Before we get at it in the comments, a few lead off points from me:

The current NRSA scale pays 0 year postdocs $43,692 so in December the brand new postdoc will see a $4,000 raise, roughly. There is currently something on the order of $1,800 increases for each successive year of experience, this estimate is close enough for discussion purposes. If this yearly raise interval is maintained we can expect to see that same $4,000 pay rise applied to every salary level. Remember to apply your local benefits rate for the cost to a grant, if you are paying your postdocs at NRSA scale from RPG funds. Could turn this into a $5,000-$6,000 cost to the grant.

Postdocs getting paid more is great. Everyone in science should be paid more but there is something specific here. Postdocs frequently work more than 40 h per week for their salaried positions. This is right down the middle of the intent of Obama’s change for the overtime rules. He is right on this. Period.

With that said, there is a very real disconnect here between the need to pay postdocs more and the business model which funds them. As mentioned above, 90% of Federally funded postdocs are supported by research grants, and 10% on fellowships or traineeships. (A population almost 8 times as large as the latter are supported by nonFederal funds- the percentage of these working on Federal research projects is likely to be substantial.) A grant may have one or two postdocs on it so adding another $5,000-$10,000 per year isn’t trivial. Especially since the research grant budgets are constrained in a number of ways.

First, in time. We propose grants in a maximum of 5 year intervals but often the budget is designed one or two years prior to funding. These grant budgets are not supplemented in the middle of a competitively-awarded interval just because NRSA salary levels are increased. Given the way NRSA rises have been coming down randomly over the years, it is already the case that budgets are stretched. Despite what people seem to think (including at NIH), we PIs do not pad the heck out of our proposed research budgets. We can’t. Our peers would recognize it on review and ding us accordingly.

Second, grants are constrained by the modular budgeting process which limits direct costs to $250,000 per year. This a soft and nebulous limit which depends on the culture of grant design, review and award. Formally speaking, one can choose a traditional budget process at any time if one needs to request funds in excess of $250,000 per year. Practically speaking, a lot of people choose to use the modular budget process. For reasons. The purchasing power has been declining for 15 years and there is no sign of a change in the expectations for per-grant scientific output.

Third, grant budgets are often limited by reductions to the requested budget that are imposed by the NIH. This can be levied upon original funding of the award or upon the award of each of the annual non-competing intervals of funding. These can often range to 10%, for argument’s sake let’s keep that $25,000 figure in mind when assessing the impact of such a reduction on paying a salary for a staff member, such as a postdoc. Point being, it’s a big fraction of a salary. This new postdoc policy isn’t going to result in fewer cuts or shallower cuts. Believe me.

I will be watching the way that local Universities choose to deal with the new policy with curiosity. I think we all see that trying to limit postdocs to 40 h a week of work so as to avoid raising the base salary is a ridiculous plan*. The other competitive motivations will continue to drive some postdocs to work more. This will put Universities (and PIs) in the extremely distasteful position of creating this elaborate fiction about working hours.

One potential upside for the good PI, who is already maintaining postdocs at NRSA levels even when funded from the RPG, is that it will force the bad PIs into line. This should narrow the competitive disadvantage that comes with trying to treat your postdocs well.

Final point. This will take away jobs. Fewer postdocs will be hired. Whether this is good or bad….well, opinions vary. But the math is unmistakable.

[UPDATE: The modular budget grant limit of $250,000 was established for R01s in FY2000 and the NRSA 0 year postdoc salary in FY2000 was $26,916. This is 10.8% of the direct costs of a full modular R01. In FY2017 when this new NRSA adjustment, the 0 year postdoc will be 19% of the direct costs of a full modular R01. In short the postdoc is now 76% more expensive than the postdoc was in FY2000.]
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*It is, however, a failed opportunity to attempt to normalize academic science’s working conditions. I see no reason we shouldn’t take a stab at enforcing a 40 h work week in academic science, personally. Particularly for the grad student and post-doc labor force who are realistically not very different from the technicians who do, btw, enjoy most labor protections.

An issue of data ownership

An interesting retraction of an Editorial expression of concern hit the Twitts:
https://twitter.com/schneiderleonid/status/712278127519645696

The Editors and publisher have withdrawn an Expression of Concern previously contributed by noted neuroscientist David Amaral, with his agreement.

The original version of this Comment ‘Expression of Concern’ published by D. Amaral has been withdrawn by the Publisher in relation to the paper: ‘Organization of connections of the basal and accessory basal nuclei in the monkey amygdala’ by Eva Bonda, published in Volume 12, pp. 1971-1992 (doi: 10.1046/j.1460-9568.2000.00082.x). The review carried out at the University of California at Davis in December 2001 (brought to the publisher’s attention in February 2016) concluded that the allegation against Eva Bonda described in the commentary ‘Expression of Concern’ by D. Amaral did not meet The Office of Research Integrity’s definition of research misconduct, and was not pursued further.

That November 2000 Expression of Concern read, in part:

It has recently come to my attention that Eva Bonda has published a paper in the European Journal of Neuroscience entitled, ‘Organization of connections of the basal and accessory basal nuclei in the monkey amygdala’ ( Bonda, 2000). The data described in this paper were produced by my students and me at the University of California, Davis. Support for carrying out the experiments that produced these data was provided by the National Institute of Mental Health, through grant MH 41479 for which I am the Principal Investigator.
..The publication of this single-authored paper was totally unauthorized. Eva Bonda was a postdoctoral fellow in our laboratory.

Ok, so PI asserts ownership of data collected in his lab. Fine, fine… Typical story of postdoc who thinks that she owns and controls her data? And the PI was blocking publication for reasons unknown. We all have been down the various roads of he said/she said often enough to imagine a variety of scenarios where we might alternately side with the trainee or the postdoc.

Intriguing!

She had access to the preparations that were described in the paper. However, she did not carry out any of the experimental procedures involved in making the tracer injections reported in this paper. These injections were made by other students in the laboratory and by me. Moreover, other than processing the tissue from a small minority of the reported cases, it was the technical staff of our laboratory rather than Eva Bonda that carried out the histological processing of the reported experiments.

Ah. Well that sounds bad. This suggests it is a little more like theft of credit from more people than just the PI. I happen to disagree with the not-infrequent pose of postdocs on the internet that they own and control “their” data that they generated in the laboratory of a given PI. But that is much more of an arguable position than is taking data generated by many people other than one’s self and asserting control/ownership from a position that is not the PI.

Amaral finishes by making the charge of academic misconduct against Bonda very explicit:

In my view, the appropriation and publication of these data is a serious breach of scientific ethics. I have asked the Editor of the European Journal of Neuroscience to take appropriate action including publication of this Expression of Concern. Upon consultation with the Office of Research Integrity, Public Health Service, US Department of Health and Human Services, the agency responsible for protecting the integrity of NIH funded research programs, the UC Davis campus has agreed to initiate a review of the allegations of research misconduct. Based on the outcome of this review, further actions, including request for full retraction, may be taken concerning this.

Of course, the recent retraction of the Expression of Concern indicates that Bonda, the postdoc, was exonerated of misconduct charges in 2001!

Wow. Why did it take Amaral 15 years to retract his accusations? This seems spectacularly dickish to me.

And given the fact that the postdoc was not found guilty of misconduct by the University, it really questions the factual basis of his assertions in the original Expression of Concern. If I were the postdoc in question, I might have launched a counter accusation of professional misconduct. Depending, of course, on the details of the inquiry and what each party did and did not do. The exoneration of the postdoc may simply have been a lack of proof of intent, rather than any disagreement over the facts.

I notice, however, an interesting poll put up by an individual who both was RTing the tweets that alerted me to this situation and apparently co-published with Amaral.

https://twitter.com/mrhunsaker/status/712639543531319296

Gee, I wonder what the nature of the dispute was between Amaral and Bonda?

The subject of this poll is the juxtaposition of “good data” with “high quality standards” of the PI. Given what Amaral does, I’m going out on a limb and assuming we are talking about how pretty the immunohistochemical images are or are not (the Bonda paper is nearly all immuno-staining pictures).

On whitening the CV

I heard yet another news story* recently about the beneficial effects of whitening the resume for job seekers.

I wasn’t paying close attention so I don’t know the specific context. 

But suffice it to say, minority job applicants have been found (in studies) to get more call-backs for job interviews when the evidence of their non-whiteness on their resume is minimized, concealed or eradicated. 

Should academic trainees and job seekers do the same?

It goes beyond using only your initials if your first name is stereotypically associated with, for example, being African-Anerican. Or using an Americanized nickname to try to communicate that you are highly assimilated Asian-Anerican. 

The CV usually includes awards, listed by foundation or specific award title. “Ford Foundation” or “travel award for minority scholars” or similar can give a pretty good clue. But you cannot omit those! The awards, particularly the all-important “evidence of being competitively funded”, are a key part of a trainee’s CV. 

I don’t know how common it is, but I do have one colleague (I.e., professorial rank at this point) for whom a couple of those training awards were the only clear evidence on the CV of being nonwhite. This person stopped listing these items and/or changed how they were listed to minimize detection. So it happens.

Here’s the rub. 

I come at this from the perspective of one who doesn’t think he is biased against minority trainees and wants to know if prospective postdocs, graduate students or undergrads are of Federally recognized underrepresented status.

Why? 

Because it changes the ability of my lab to afford them. NIH has this supplement program to fund underrepresented trainees. There are other sources of support as well. 

This changes whether I can take someone into my lab. So if I’m full up and I get an unsolicited email+CV I’m more likely to look at it if it is from an individual that qualifies for a novel funding source. 

Naturally, the applicant can’t know in any given situation** if they are facing implicit bias against, or my explicit bias for, their underrepresentedness. 

So I can’t say I have any clear advice on whitening up the academic CV. 

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*probably Kang et al.

**Kang et al caution that institutional pro-diversity statements are not associated with increased call-backs or any minimization of the bias.

Blooding the trainees

In that most English of pastimes, fox hunting, the noobs are smeared about the face with the blood of the poor unfortunate fox after dismembering by hound has been achieved.

I surmise the goal is to get the noob used to the less palatable aspects of their chosen sporting endeavor. 

Anyway, speaking of manuscript review and eventual publication, do you plan a course for new trainees in the lab?

I’m wondering if you have any explicit goals for them- Should a mentor try to get new postdocs or grads a pub, any pub as quickly and easily as possible?

Or should they be thrown into a multi-journal fight so as to fully experience the joys of desk rejection, ultimate denial after four rounds of review somewhere and the final relief of just dumping that Frankensteinian monster of a paper in a lowly journal and being done. 

Do you plan any of this out for your newest trainees?

I’m 14 carat……want to look good for the PI, mmm

Have you ever been in a lab with a golden-child trainee?

Was it you?

NCI will ease that difficult transition to postdoc

I am still not entirely sure this is not an elaborate joke.

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-CA-16-005.html

The purpose of the NCI Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Award (F99/K00) is to encourage and retain outstanding graduate students who have demonstrated potential and interest in pursuing careers as independent cancer researchers. The award will facilitate the transition of talented graduate students into successful cancer research postdoctoral appointments, and provide opportunities for career development activities relevant to their long-term career goals of becoming independent cancer researchers.

The need for a transition mechanism that graduate students can apply for is really unclear to me.

Note: These are open to non-citizens on the appropriate visa. This is unlike the NRSA pre- and post-doc fellowships.

Fewer postdocs?

From @NatureNews:

  

The full story by Monya Baker

Survey of the day: Postdoc diploma

Are you familiar with any Universities that award some sort of  official recognition of the completion of a postdoctoral term of scientific training? 
When, where, etc if you feel comfortable…..

Tales from the search committee

Prof Booty has written about chairing a recent search committee.

Starting a little over a year ago, I served as chair of my department’s search committee, which concluded in the spring with a successful hire. With that experience still relatively fresh, I hope I can share some important insights into how our top candidates caught our eye, as well as the behind-the-scenes process of selecting those candidates.

Go read.

Horizon

Often times in academics we are anticipating a job change in the near future. Postdocs, in particular, since this is supposed to be a temporary job. But faculty occasionally anticipate a job change too. On the market b/c you fear tenure won’t fall, to leverage progress into a better job, to jump out of the rat race, to join Administration. 

I give advice based on Yoda’s wisdom. 

Yoda: Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless. 

No, not the paternalistic grouch stuff. In this he is worse than a greybeard of science. 

No it is the part about doing a good job on what you are currently doing. To me this is the basis for making the future stuff more likely to go your way.  

No matter how removed the anticipated job category, the candidate who has been successful in her previous job is going to look better. 

I entertained the McKinsey thing at one point during my training. Looked into it, saw who they hired and spoke to a friend of a sibling who went that way. They did not want people who had a disappointing career in science up to that point. They knew what CN or S publications meant. They wanted excellence.

Now of course plenty of people get alternative career jobs after a disappointing career as grad student or postdoc. But I think the take away message is that you should maximize your success in whatever job you are doing now. Don’t just slack because you plan to be out-o-here in a year. 

Success now increases the chances of getting into whatever next job lies over the horizon. 

There is also the consideration that you may find yourself staying in the job you have much longer than anticipated or desired. A year from now, you don’t want to look back and wish you had finished that experiment, paper, grant application or whatever.

Work based on the idea you may still be in this job in a year or three. Sometimes things happen. Maybe the local institution finally steps up and does you a solid. Maybe that firm job offer elsewhere is denied by the Dean or P&T committee. Maybe the University System puts down a hiring freeze.

You’ll be better off if you are taking care of business in your existing job.