#postdoc
After being cancelled on by two moving companies, my husband and I made a last minute decision to rent a uhaul and drive it from California to Colorado ourselves. 1000 miles and an incredible amount of beautiful terrain later, we arrived in Denver just in time to begin my August 1 postdoc contract at the Sié Chéou-Kang Center.
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As academic institutions work to promote faculty diversity, University of California San Diego postdoctoral fellows urge leadership to consider the pandemic’s impact on underrepresented (UR) scientists. In a recent commentary published in Molecular Biology of the Cell, they argue that “academia is at risk of losing a generation of diverse, talented scholars” due to COVID-19.
Fellows of the National Institutes of Health-funded Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA) receive rigorous training in research, teaching and mentorship to prepare them for academic careers. The San Diego IRACDA program has trained 109 postdoctoral scholars, the majority of which are women and UR scientists. However, the current cohort is advocating for action against the increasing obstacles they face due to the events of the last few years.
They say that factors, including a lack of generational wealth, increased caregiving responsibilities and uncertain academic job prospects have contributed to postdoc financial hardship and intensified ambivalence toward pursuing academic careers.
The job market for academic faculty positions has been competitive for years, but nationwide faculty hiring freezes caused by the pandemic have created a backlog of postdocs pursuing academic positions.
Financial considerations are also affecting postdoc interest in academic careers. Of the 18 fellows who participated in the survey, 94 percent said postdoctoral training created financial constraints in their lives, and 67 percent reported that the pandemic exacerbated these financial struggles.
With more UR scientists leaving the academic track, the IRACDA fellows urge academics to consider increasing postdoc compensation and support, providing affordable housing, and implementing faculty cluster hiring and structured programs to enhance academic career success of UR faculty scholars.
— Nicole Mlynaryk, Bigelow Science Communication Fellow
