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Career Development research

Focus on measuring predictors of career outcomes for graduate students & postdocs

Little is known about the career prospects of advanced degree-trained individuals, despite the considerable resources they and the institutions that train them devote to developing these scholars & scientists.

Recently, institutions have been collecting and reporting important training and outcome data.

However, more needs to be done to improve our understanding of career prospects for Masters and Ph.D. students and well as postdoctoral scholars. Such data will allow us to better prepare these talented individuals for a changing 21st Century workforce.

My research has shifted from my training in Neuroscience toward work that seeks to better understanding career outcomes of graduate students and postdocs. In addition, I seek to understand the effect professional development programming initiatives have on career outcomes.


Research Work

A survey-based analysis of the academic job market
NEW for Fall 2023: Faculty ApplicantS' Data Dashboard
Work conducted in collaboration with members of the Future_PI Slack Community
​Featured in Nature & Science Careers


Key Take-Home Points:
  • Analyzed 317 responses to an anonymous survey for faculty job applicants from the May 2018 - May 2019 market cycle
  • Participants:
    • Largely from North America
    • Mostly conducting research in biological/biomedical sciences
  • Participants were highly successful with 58% of applicants receiving at least one offer.
  • Traditional metrics (funding, publications, etc.) of a positive research track record above a certain threshold of qualifications were unable to completely differentiate applicants that did and did not receive a job offer.
  • Applicants’ perception of the faculty job application process as unnecessarily stressful, time-consuming, and largely lacking in feedback, irrespective of a successful outcome.
Our findings suggest that there is no single clear path to a faculty job offer and that perhaps criteria not captured by our survey may also influence landing a faculty position above a certain threshold of qualification.

We hope that this study will provide an avenue for better data-driven decision making by the applicants and search committees, better evidence-based mentorship practices by principal investigators, and improved hiring practices by institutions.

UPDATED 8/7/2023:
We have recently made data from the 2019-2020, 2020-2021, and 2021-2022 faculty applicant surveys available for individuals to review and filter along a variety of demographic metrics (research field, gender, and PEER (Person Historically Excluded due to Ethnicity or Race) status of applicants). You can see how a variety of productivity metrics and accomplishments differ (or not) in those who received a faculty offer versus those who did not based on our data.

We hope this dashboard helps Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scholars make informed choices about their competitiveness for a faculty position at a research intensive institution. 


​Explore our Applicants' Data Dashboard
Picture
Traditional metrics of scholarly productivity were assessed against faculty offer percent (Offer % = # of offers/# applications). While continuous data was split by median for illustrative purposes, correlation analyses were also conducted and supported these relationships, or lack thereof. (Excerpt from Fig 5)
We are continuing this work by examining the faculty job market from the applicant's perspective over the past several years, including COVID-19 impacts. Learn more about our work on our Faculty Job Market Collaboration website. 

FOR FURTHER READING - KEY PUBLICATIONS IN THE EDUCATION RESEARCH & CAREER OUTCOMES SPACE

Newly Featured! Updated July 26, 2023​
Meta-Analysis of graduate student and postdoctoral education and training research
  • An emerging field: An evaluation of biomedical graduate student and postdoctoral education and training research across seven decades
Publication from the Postdoc Academy
  • A national professional development program fills mentoring gaps for postdoctoral researchers

Newly Featured! Updated May 25, 2023​
Pre-prints on mentoring
  • Insights from a survey of mentorship experiences by graduate and postdoctoral researchers
  • The faculty-to-faculty mentorship experience: a survey on challenges and recommendations for improvements

Pre-prints on faculty job market
  • Beyond the Leaky Pipeline: A Quantitative Analysis of the Academic Job Market in Humanities and Social Sciences
  • The U.S. academic job market survives the SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic

Other new research worth promoting:
  • What’s another year? The lengthening training and career paths of scientists
  • Demographic characteristics of participants in graduate college professional and sociocultural development programming
    • ​Commentary piece with the study's authors from University of Michigan's Rackham Graduate School 

Newly Featured! Updated May 1, 2022
  • National Bureau of Economic Research Fall 2021 Conference Papers: Investments in Early Career Scientists: Data and Research Gaps
    • An import collection of working papers on graduate education and Ph.D. holders' and postdoctoral scholars' career paths, including how advanced degree training skillsets map onto career preparation and how career paths of postdoctoral scholars may differ for temporary visa holders versus other groups. 
    • And see the Spring 2022 Conference collection, where papers will be added in the coming months!
  • What is a Traditional Scientist Career? Evidence from the Survey of Doctorate Recipients
  • Leak or Link? The Overrepresentation of Women in Non-Tenure-Track Academic Positions in STEM​
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Graduate-Level Career & Professional Development Programming Impact
A cross-institutional analysis of the effects of broadening trainee professional development on research productivity​

Remote learning barriers and opportunities for graduate student and postdoctoral learners in career and professional skill development: A case study

A structured professional development curriculum for postdoctoral fellows leads to recognized knowledge growth


Scientific Workforce Trends & Career Motivations of Graduate Students and Postdocs
The PhD Factory: The world is producing more PhDs than ever before. Is it time to stop?

Science PhD career preferences: Levels, changes, and advisor encouragement

Why pursue the postdoc path?

The impact of postdoctoral training on early careers in biomedicine

​Career choices of underrepresented and female postdocs in the biomedical sciences​

Factors that influence the transition of university postdocs to non-academic scientific careers: An exploratory study

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Postdocs’ advice on pursuing a research career in academia: A qualitative analysis of free-text survey responses
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Skills & Experiences Needed for Career Success Post Graduate Degree
Intellectual synthesis in mentorship determines success in academic careers

Labor and skills gap analysis of the biomedical research workforce

Aligning doctoral education with local industrial employers’ needs: A comparative case study

An evidence-based evaluation of transferrable skills and job satisfaction for science PhDs

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Postdocs’ lab engagement predicts trajectories of PhD students’ skill development

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The Academic Career Readiness Assessment: Clarifying Hiring and Training Expectations for Future Biomedical Life Sciences Faculty


Measuring Career Outcomes of Graduate Students and Postdocs
Making Strides in Doctoral-Level Career Outcomes Reporting: Surveying the Landscape of Classification and Visualization Methodologies and Creating a Crosswalk Tool 
  • ​See OSF for associated resources

The 10,000 PhDs project at the University of Toronto: Using employment outcome data to inform graduate education

An institutional analysis of graduate outcomes reveals a contemporary workforce footprint for biomedical master’s degrees

Applying inter-rater reliability to improve consistency in classifying PhD career outcomes

Visualization of gender, race, citizenship and academic performance in association with career outcomes of 15-year biomedical doctoral alumni at a public research university

The career outlook of engineering PhDs: Influence of postdoctoral research positions on early career salaries and the attainment of tenure-track faculty positions

Illuminating systematic differences in no job offers for STEM doctoral recipients

PhD and postdoc training outcomes at EMBL: changing career paths for life scientists in Europe

U.S. postdoctoral careers in life sciences, physical sciences and engineering: Government, industry, and academia

Factors that Influence the Transition of University Postdocs to Non-Academic Scientific Careers: An Exploratory Study
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Papers Focused on Implementing Career & Professional Development Programs for Grad Students & Postdocs
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Applying Experiential Learning to Career Development Training for Biomedical Graduate Students and Postdocs: Perspectives on Program Development and Design

Creating and sustaining collaborative multi-institutional industry site visit programs: a toolkit

Using Stakeholder Insights to Enhance Engagement in PhD Professional Development

​Skill Development in Graduate Education

Introducing Conflict Resolution and Negotiation Training into a Biomedical Sciences Graduate Curriculum​


​Supporting Postdoc to Faculty Conversions & Increasing Faculty Diversity
A New Effort to Diversify Faculty: Postdoc-to-Tenure Track Conversion Models
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Professorial Advancement Initiative: A Cross-Institutional Collaboration to Increase Faculty Diversity in STEM

Quantifying hierarchy and dynamics in US faculty hiring and retention

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COVID Impact on Scientific Workforce
The Effect of COVID-19 on the Postdoctoral Experience: A comparison of pre-pandemic and pandemic surveys 


Contributions from the community:

​Publications on the Postdoctoral Experience (submitted by Jennifer Miller, Ph.D.)
Why we are here: A review of the literature on motivations for postdoctoral appointments

Isolated in the lab: Examining dissatisfaction with postdoctoral appointments

Postdoctoral appointments: Motivations, markets, and experiences (Miller's UNC Dissertation)

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