LIFE AFTER THE Ph.D.

Daniel J. Jacob
 TYPICAL Ph.D. CAREERS
– Professor (research university, teaching college)
– Research scientist (national lab, university, industry, small business)
– Expert scientist (consulting, industry, government, NGO)
– Science manager (government agency, private)
– Wall Street, etc.

WHERE ARE THE GROUP ALUMS (including postdocs)?

• Professors at research universities: Denise Mauzerall
(Princeton), Yuhang Wang (Georgia Tech), Randall Martin
(Dalhousie), Colette Heald (CSU); Lyatt Jaegle (UW), Francois
Ravetta (U. Paris), Isabelle Bey (EPFL), Mat Evans (Leeds), Dylan
Jones (Toronto), Paul Palmer (Edinburgh), Rokjin Park (SNU)

• Research scientists in national labs: Yves Balkanski (CEA), Larry

Horowitz (GFDL), Hongyu Liu (NASA), Qinbin Li (JPL), Arlene
Fiore (GFDL); Mian Chin (NASA), Martin Schultz (KFA), Philip
Cameron-Smith (LLNL), Celine Mari (CNRS), Nadine Unger
(NASA), Solene Turquety (CNES)

• Expert scientists: Jinyou Liang (CARB), Amanda Staudt (NWF),

Nathalie Poisson (ADEME)

• Postdocs: Yaping Xiao (UNH), Rynda Hudman (Harvard)

 IS A RESEARCH CAREER FOR ME?
Good reasons to choose a career in research:
• Exert your creativity- contribute to human knowledge, search for truth
• Science is so much fun; euphoria of understanding something new
• Achieve success by objective measures of merit, not social skills or
appearance or public approval
• Don’t deal with human suffering or people who hate you or want to step on you
– just numbers, equipment, and nice colleagues.
• Enjoy mutual respect with your peers in a relatively non-competitive
atmosphere
• See the world and meet the people who live there – the world is your village
• Be guaranteed an upper-middle-class income, little financial pressure – true
‘professional’
Good
• Gain reasons not to
professional choose
and a career inas
social acceptance research:
a nerd
• Enjoy
• I’m independence,
not having much stay
funaas
kida your
grad whole life
student (psst – it doesn’t get much
better)
• I don’t enjoy science or the scientific community that much – would rather
a 40h/wk job or a people-oriented job
• Research is too narrow– I want more big-picture, have more obvious impact
• Research is too long-term – I want more variety in my work
Bad•reasons
I want tonot
become filthy rich
to choose a career in research:
• “I’m not creative enough” - you don’t know this, and the creativity bar
is not high
• “I don’t want the publish or perish mentality” – it’s not that harsh, and
you can also work in a team where you don’t need to publish
• “It’s too hard to get a good job” – it really isn’t, there are tons of jobs
out there
 RESEARCH CAREER: UNIVERSITY OR NATIONAL
LAB?
• University career
– Incredible independence
– Teaching keeps you in contact with fundamentals
– Broad intellectual community
– Contact with students, joy of mentorship, university environment
– Focus on individual achievement
– Not as difficult as it seems. Most universities are not like Harvard (every
polar bear his own ice floe). Most actually provide a supportive and
collegial environment, and don’t have unreasonable expectations for
faculty.

• National lab
– Work with colleagues – be a team player; avoid isolation
– Be part of an enterprise, make big things happen (like a satellite mission)
– Benefit from institutional support for your research
– Conduct science yourself rather than through students/postdocs
– Avoid teaching
 WHY DO A POSTDOC?

Doing a postdoc is a good idea if you want a research career

• Broadens your expertise: gives you more flexibility for your future research
• Positions you better for seeking employment: your market value increases as your Ph.D. papers get out, you get
involved in more projects, get to know more people, etc.
• Gives you a breather to think about what you want to do, apply for positions
• Allows you to carry out research with little interference from other duties and at a time in your life when
commitment to research may be relatively easy; your postdoc may produce the best papers of your career
[Jacob, JGR 1986, 333 citations; Jacob and Wofsy, JGR 1988, 312 citations]

Why NOT do a postdoc?

• You’ve decided against a research career
• Excellent job opportunity strikes at the door (but then they
will often still let you do a postdoc)
• Personal issues (relocation, financial needs)
 WHAT KIND OF POSTDOC?
• At a university – generally best if you want an academic position
– University profs tend to have more fire in the belly, pressure to
publish, personal contact with postdoc, mentorship experience
– Stay in contact with university world
• At a national lab - best if you want to put your foot in the door for
a position in that lab
– Labs often use postdoc programs as feeders to recruit
permanent staff

How much should I (can I) change fields?

• Ideally your postdoc should broaden significantly but build on your
Ph.D. work – learn a new technique, work on a different problem
• Changing fields is OK (if you can find an employer) but you lose
the contacts acquired in your Ph.D. – detracts from career continuity

Should I try to get an independent postdoc fellowship?

• A prestigious fellowship (e.g., NOAA) is good pedigree and looks
good on CV
•…but it can box you in to work at a specific institution or with a
specific advisor
• It’s a good way to do something very different – for which your
advisor wouldn’t hire you on his/her own money
• …but independence has its danger – possible neglect by advisor
 HOW TO GO ABOUT LOOKING FOR A
POSTDOC
Don’t just look for advertisements!! Most postdoc jobs are
obtained by networking
• 1st step – decide on the area you want to go into. Ideally
it should broaden significantly your grad school
experience while also building on it.
• 2nd step: identify a few potential advisors you would like
to work with. Nothing is more important than to have a
boss that you respect and from whom you want to learn.
• 3rd step: contact them by e-mail, or talk to them at a
meeting. Tell them you’re very interested in their
research and would like to work with them. You don’t
have to identify a specific project – you can, but it’s their
job to suggest. Offer to apply for fellowships – they may
have fellowships to suggest, or they may tell you it
doesn’t
The above matter.
is mostly for academic postdocs. Other postdocs (national
lab, agency) may require more anonymous application to postdoc
fellowship programs (NRC, ASP, AAAS, etc.). Nevertheless, it’s always
important to think about who you want to work with and contact them.
People who can recommend you are your ace in the hole – coming out of this
group is not going to hurt you, but having networked during your Ph.D. with
outside people who can say you’re great is a big plus.
 HOW TO SUCCEED IN A POSTDOC
INTERVIEW
• Have some idea of what your future boss is doing and how you may fit
in, but the most important thing is to demonstrate expertise in your
Ph.D. work and to be able to convey it (having vision, being
articulate). Your prospective boss doesn’t expect you to have
expertise in their line of work – but looks for record of achievement,
clarity of thinking, vision
• Your interview talk is very important – see “how to give an effective
presentation”
• ‘. You must show (1) vision – demonstrate why what you’re doing is
important, (2) tutorial skill – know your audience, start at the lowest
common denominator, (3) rigor and mastery of your work. The most
common criticisms I hear from Harvard professors about
postdoc/faculty interview talks are:
– “He couldn’t explain why what he was doing was important”
– “I couldn’t understand what she was doing”
– “He had lousy visuals, wasn’t articulate”
…notice how detached this is from the technical content of the talk.
• A common misconception is that you have to gear your talk towards
your host’s interests so you can impress him – you’re likely just to
make a fool of yourself. Play instead to your strengths – your host will
be able to recognize these even if they’re not in her area.
 HOW TO SUCCEED IN A FACULTY
INTERVIEW
• The university has only very few appointments to make in your field, and is
considering a lifetime commitment. It is critical that you present yourself as
someone who has a clear idea of where the field is going, who will be a
leader of the next generation, and who has sufficient vision and breadth to
evolve as needed.
• Do your homework with the department – know what the faculty are doing,
engage them in their research (they’ll be pleased even if you’re naïve), bring
up possible avenues of collaboration
• Your talk is the most crucial part of the interview. Give an overview of what
you’ve done for your Ph.D.+postdoc and then focus on one topic to go into
depth. Your ability to convey your research to a broad audience is critical –
provide adequate background, explain why your problem is so important.
Show scientific vision, mastery of fundamentals, avoid technical detail. A
few slides at the end to describe your future plans is a good idea – but show
vision, don’t be pedestrian.
• You may be asked about teaching plans. Show flexibility in offering to teach
a range of subjects, particularly at the UG level. You want to convey
breadth, flexibility, collegiality, and strength in the fundamentals. You can
be more serious as to what you actually agree to teach once you get the job
• You may be asked about start-up needs. Aim high – you will earn respect for
that. Focus on what you need rather than on what it will cost – the
university may have creative solutions to meet your needs. A starting
Expect the
package of initial
$500Koffer not toreasonable
is a very meet all your expectations,
request but view it only as
for a modeler.
a starting point for negotiations – and negotiate! Once you have an offer your
position becomes all of a sudden incredibly strong – an obstreperous faculty
group has somehow managed to find consensus around you and to get an
offer approved by the Dean, this kind of consensus happens once in a blue
moon so they can’t afford to let you go and if they do let you go the Dean
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
• As a research scientist can I get away with having no social skills at all? (I love that question)
– Of course not, but the standards are very very low. Look people in the eye, be able to carry out a basic
conversation, maintain basic personal hygiene… not much more is expected!
• How do I build vision, develop a sense of future research priorities?
– There are plenty of community documents for that: IPCC, WMO, NRC reports, workshop reports…read
them. Interview senior scientists, who love to be asked their vision of the future, and you might find
something useful in their pontifications.
• Is it detrimental to skip the postdoc and go straight to a faculty position?
– It generally is, though if you’re offered a great position you should of course take it (and then ask for a
deferral to do a postdoc – that’s a standard thing these days). The risk in going straight to a faculty
position is not having a chance to broaden your horizons – a faculty position hits you with teaching +
administrative + proposal duties, it’s hard to find time for reflection and it’s hard to get funded outside
of your narrow Ph.D. area of expertise.
• How should I approach a postdoc at the same institution as where I did my Ph.D.?
– There are two kinds of such postdocs; the ‘short postdoc’ in which you wrap up loose threads from your
Ph.D. for a year or so after graduation, and a longer (more standard) postdoc. The former is just a brief
extension of your Ph.D. and can be followed either by another postdoc or a research/academic position
where your additional experience gives you some benefit. The latter is not necessarily a bad idea (there
is no penalty in principle for doing your Ph.D. and postdoc at the same institution) but you should
broaden your horizons – don’t keep on doing what you did for your Ph.D.
• How about a postdoc overseas?
– This is a great idea if you want a career overseas, but in general not as good if you want a career in the
U.S. First problem is you’re ‘out of sight, out of mind’ when time comes to apply for U.S. jobs –
institution and recommenders may not be well known. Second problem is that the weight of the
hierarchy is typically greater abroad than in the U.S. and the push to publish is typically less – in
general it’ harder for young people to shine than in the U.S. But these are generalities of course and
there are plenty of exceptions.
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS (cont.)
• Should I do multiple postdocs, and how long should a postdoc be?
– In atmospheric chemistry there is in general no need or reason to do more than one postdoc –
jobs are plentiful. A second postdoc may hurt (‘why can’t that person get a real job?’) unless it
involves a substantial change of research direction or some personal imperative. A good postdoc
should be at least two years, ideally three, to go over the learning curve and start producing
papers. A very long postdoc (5+ years) is not harmful if you stay productive –sometimes on the
contrary, and examples at Harvard abound.
• Is it a good idea to take a faculty position at a very good place but where I'll be isolated?
– It’s obviously risky . But a very good place generally means good graduate students, good
infrastructure, and a good ‘brand name’ with which to apply for research grants. It’s important in
that case to gauge the level of support you will get from the faculty and the administration – if
they recognize that you will be isolated and offer you support ( a good start-up package,
opportunities for sabbatical, reasonable expectations for tenure, etc.) then I would go for it.
• How should I pick recommenders (besides my adviser)?
– It’s best to have (1) big names and titles, (2) names from outside your institution. Nothing is more
important for a prospective employer than a recommendation letter from someone they know and
somewhat respect. Of course the ‘big name and title’ has to be able to say something significant
about you – but if they can’t they will generally tell you (by declining to write a letter), because
they know that a bland letter is ineffectual and they can’t risk their good name on writing a strong
recommendation for someone they don’t know well. Having recommenders from outside your
institution sends the obvious message that your fame has already extended to the national (or
international) scale.
• How do I build a good name for myself?
– A record of high-quality publications and presentations is a sine qua non and the most important
thing. Quality here is far more important than quantity. but it’s not enough. You have to generate
a ‘buzz’ about yourself. This means networking with scientists outside your institution – through
scientific meetings, engaging visitors, communicating by email…