Biodesign postdocs work to improve collaboration, mentorship and career opportunities

Joe Caspermeyer, Media Relations Manager & Science Editor
(480) 727-0369 | joseph.caspermeyer@asu.edu

Melissa Herbst-Kralovetz is among a fifty-member-strong family of postdoctoral researchers, or postdocs, working at ASU’s Biodesign Institute to advance science while furthering their scientific careers.

A postdoc position is taken after a student obtains a PhD in a field of science or engineering. Postdocs then work for a professor conducting research during what is considered a training period before they are able to try to gain a tenure-track position in academia or go on to work in another arena like industry or government.

Kralovetz recently completed her first year as a postdoc in the institute’s Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, where she is developing new mucosal delivery methods for plant-based vaccines. Her typical week is a balancing act brimming with conducting her own research experiments, writing papers and grants, and training undergraduate and graduate students.

Beyond the Biodesign bench side, Kralovetz has taken the lead in developing an organization to support postdocs.

She was awarded a travel grant to participate in the Postdoc Leadership Mentoring Project, sponsored by the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. As part of the yearlong mentoring program with the NPA, Kralovetz learned from a senior member of the NPA about how others develop postdoc organizations, and what resources may be available to pay for things like the career development workshops.

Now, after a national competition, the NPA will be coming for the first time to the Greater Phoenix area at an opportune time in the region’s burgeoning bioscience efforts.

Kralovetz and her fellow Biodesign postdocs are also expanding the opportunities for postdocs to get to meet their peers by coordinating the first Valley wide poster session, to be held October 6th at the Biodesign Institute to coincide with the NPA visit. "We have invited leading scientists from Barrow Neurological Institute, Mayo Clinic, Translational Genomics Research Institute to present their research and foster collaboration," she said. Recently, Keith Ameiss, with Sara Byron from Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), successfully planned and executed the first Biodesign/TGen collaborative luncheon.

The impetus to increase communication among research scholars began with leadership from some of Biodesign’s leading scientists. “It all started when Stephen Albert Johnston coordinated a meeting of Biodesign postdocs in October of last year,” Kralovetz said. Johnston is the director of the institute’s Center for Innovations in Medicine. Since that first meeting, she has been serendipitously thrust into a leadership role organizing a diverse crew of postdocs into committees to address a variety of important issues for this cadre of hard-working researchers in the institute.

A good example of support was provided when Neal Woodbury, professor and director of Biodesign’s Center for BioOptical Nanotechnology, gave a seminar to postdocs in the Institute about how to apply for funding from the National Science Foundation. Kralovetz would like to organize workshops for improving science writing skills, grant writing and other development training. She has had success in starting a seminar series for postdocs at the Biodesign Institute, usually held every other Wednesday.

"We didn’t know what other postdocs at Biodesign were doing, that’s why the seminar series is so important," said Kralovetz. The seminar series provides an opportunity to do some of the collaborating that forms part of the backbone of research efforts at the Biodesign Institute.

In addition, Kralovetz’s efforts have led to the formation of the Biodesign Association of Postdocs, which she chairs along with vice-chair Keith Ameiss. Other leaders include Shaleen Korch (secretary), Vinay Nagaraj (webmaster) and representative Melha Mellata, who reports from CIDV faculty meetings. Faculty advisors include Roy Curtiss III and Stephen A. Johnston, who are center directors within Biodesign and professors in the School of Life Sciences.

With the help of the NPA, Kralovetz expects to be able to develop a support structure at the Biodesign Institute, and link with the postdoc support office at ASU led by Andrew Webber. "We will develop an action plan and then have monthly advisory meetings to evaluate progress," said Kralovetz.

This will provide a communication outlet for postdoc issues and assist with their career and professional growth development to help them secure a successful future career in science.

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Biodesign Institute Postdoctoral Poster Symposium
Saturday, October 06 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM
Biodesign Institute Auditorium and B Atrium
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Joan Lakoski, Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Career Development and Associate Dean for Postdoctoral Education at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Call for ABSTRACTS – Deadline is Friday, September 21. Download the abstract submission form: Postdoc registration form

Completed abstracts should be mailed to biodesignpostdocs

A hectic life, a winding career path

Life as a postdoc can often be a bit of a free-for-all because most universities have no single authority that oversees working conditions like length of employment, salary and benefits. For instance, some academic institutions put a time limit on how long scientists can work as postdocs, and several scientists find themselves working on a second or third postdoc in the hopes of bolstering their efforts to obtain a tenure-track faculty position.

Postdocs may also have to balance the pressures of starting families while often having salaries tied to federal grant funded contracts that have been grown increasingly hard to get, and amongst the most competitive career tracks in all of industry or academia. In fact, many postdocs have cited uncertainty about the future as one of the main dissatisfactions they have with their job, according to a 2005 survey by the scientific research society Sigma Xi. In a 2007 survey by The Scientist, one out of every three postdocs either weren’t sure what they’d be doing in two years or thought they’d still be employed as a postdoc.

According to the Sigma Xi study, most postdocs do not receive any formal training, but instead rely on their faculty mentors for informal guidance on how to do things like write grant proposals. The desire for more training in areas like grant writing comes at a time when the ratio of postdocs to principal investigators (permanently employed project leaders) is increasing, according to a study by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.  In 2002, the ratio of postdocs to principal investigators was two to one, which is a two-fold increase from the mid 1980s.

Consequently, Kralovetz has set out to establish some support, and her efforts are important not only for postdocs but also to the welfare of Biodesign and ASU as a research institution. A survey by Science in 1999 found that the lead authors of close to 50 percent of research articles published in an issue of that magazine were postdocs.

“I believe we need some kind of support or infrastructure here at Biodesign to provide basic career development training for postdocs,” Kralovetz said.  “From an administrative standpoint, it will help to attract the top-notch postdocs, and this is the type of support structure that they are going to be looking for.”

Helpful postdoc links:

National Postdoctoral Association

Sigma Xi