In The Field

ASHG: Jobs or bust

At least 250 postdocs and grad students attended a networking session here Tuesday night, in the ASHG’s new drive to provide content for younger members. The message was sobering: available academic positions are decreasing, and the number of PhD’s keeps increasing. What to do?


The session was kicked off by Bill Lindstaedt, Director of the UCSF Office of Career and Professional Development [https://student.ucsf.edu/osl/contact/]. He delivered the depressing news first: the median age of first tenure-track positions is 38; the median age of receiving a first NIH research grant R01 is 42; and only 4% of such grants go to first-time investigators. Yowch. As most people already know, this means many young investigators are trapped in repeated post-docs or other non-tenure-track positions for up to ten years. Bill suggested completing an individual development plan where you catalogue your strengths and weaknesses, and it sounded quite detailed. It’s probably a great idea but I found myself thinking that it was about the same length and quite similar to as filling out an application for an NRSA postdoctoral fellowship, where at least you have a chance (however slim these days!) to get some money at the end.

At the ASHG session, there were six speakers; two were more traditional academicians, and the rest of us had gone into other things. What I find heartening is that there are many more presentations about “alternative careers in science” than there were when I got my PhD eight years ago. I know because I speak at a number of them each year now! The six speakers each echoed one point: pursue the thing that keeps you up at night, the thing that you are most passionate about.

Every student in science should hear the message that you don’t have to go into a faculty position to make a difference in science or to pursue your love of the field. After the short talks here, there was a schmoozing session where students could ask questions of a number of geneticists in many fields. Several asked me the same question: how do you feel about “stepping off the track” and not being a ‘principal investigator’? I always answer this the same way: in what position do you think I have more influence, particularly at a younger age? Working away to get my first R01, or determining which genetics and genomics papers are published in Nature?

The other question that I’m asked most often is, if someone is interested in editing, what should they do in grad school or postdoc to get started? My advice is to ask your advisor to let you help them complete reviews on papers being considered for publication – your advisor probably gets asked to do them all the time, and could use some help with them. You should also try to write review articles in your area or summaries of papers for journals that publish them in their front half. It’s great to be able to come to an editing interview and point to places that you’ve shown you can read papers and summarize the important advance reported.

Chris Gunter

Nature manuscript editor, DC

[posted by Nicola Jones on her behalf]

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