If postdocs were migrant farm workers, they would find fertile ground at the J. David Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco.

"These postdocs are professionals," says Robert Mahley, president of the J. David Gladstone Institutes for 21 years. Mahley staunchly justifies the fall 1999 implementation of a 12.4 percent salary increase over the first four years of a postdoc's tenure at the institutes. The salary increase puts a postdoc's income $5,000 to $7,000 higher than that recommended on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Research Service Award (NRSA) scale.

The revamped Gladstone Postdoctoral Fellows Training Program addresses the arbitrary and inconsistent benefits and training that postdocs receive nationwide. These shortcomings are substantiated by at least two studies. One, published by the National Academy Press and prepared by the Academies' Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (COSEPUP), appears in Enhancing the Postdoctoral Experience for Scientists and Engineers: A Guide for Postdoctoral Scholars, Advisors, Institutions, Funding Organizations, and Disciplinary Societies. The other is contained in the executive summary of the National Research Council's (NRC) 1998 report Trends in the Early Careers of Life Scientists.

The statistics in the COSEPUP guide and NRC summary point to a lack of strong leadership to ensure adequate salary and training standards for too many postdocs. In the 130 years since Johns Hopkins University hired the first 20 postdocs, trainees in all fields in the United States number about 52,000. In 1995, nearly 40 percent of all Ph.D.s were still postdocs five to six years after receiving their degrees, a fourfold increase of lingering postdocs since 1973. In a tight labor market, many trainees are still looking for permanent jobs while in their second or third postdoc.

Many advanced postdocs are getting older, and many are working for low salaries. As of 1998, the minimum suggested pay for first-year postdocs was $26,916. Some evidence suggests that foreign nationals are earning significantly less than that. Moreover, one-third to one-half of all postdocs are supporting spouses and children on incomes that are far less than what seasoned technicians and high school teachers make. Surveying the current postdoc experience, Sharon Milgram, associate professor and director of postdoctoral education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) says, "People feel undervalued."

Dozens of articles have interpreted these statistics as signs of the "postdoc plight" or "the growing crisis in expectation." Based on interviews with postdocs, advisers, and administrators, this writer offers an outsider's perspective on what postdocs can do to improve their lives.

Know What You Want

Postdocs should prepare for the long commitment to the bench or choose another path in science, given that the current median time spent from the first year of graduate school to the end of postdoctoral training is eight years. To check out alternative careers in science, trainees can read Cynthia Robbins-Roth's Alternative Careers in Science.

Still, given the facts, nearly 40 percent of all postgraduate Ph.D.s in 1998 chose to become postdocs. They and future graduates can read the COSEPUP guide; it can help postdocs draw up a reasonable set of expectations, as part of a plan, for a successful postdoctoral career. The guide summarizes the history, demographics, rights, mentoring opportunities, salary, and benefits of postdocs in the United States, drawing from statistics gathered over the years 1973 to 1998. It makes "summary points" on what postdocs can expect in the way of salary, training, and career building from their mentors. Citing the need for "more dialogue" among postdocs, their advisers, and administrators, COSEPUP plans to hold another convocation on March 2, 2001, in Washington, D.C.. The convocation is free to all postdocs and will be Webcast.

Plan the Postdoc

Armed with realistic expectations from the statistics at hand, postdocs can try to negotiate high-quality postdoctoral appointments. "Pay close attention to whom you interview," advises Paul Humke, professor of mathematics at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and a 22-year veteran of the school. Postdocs are sometimes unsuccessful, he adds, if "personalities don't match or working styles don't match." It is key, he says, for the postdoc to step back and see if the scientific leadership of the department sets the proper research environment, so the trainee is eventually a "full partner" with the mentor and postdoctoral colleagues at the institution. "There is a certain onus on the postdocs to look for what they want," Humke adds. After a while, the postdoc should be able to say, "I will learn a lot from this guy [or gal]."

If a postdoc wins an appointment, the trainee needs to weigh gaining valuable training experience with spending the time needed to avoid poverty as cheap labor. Several articles, most accessible online, carefully document the financial rewards and penalties a postdoc faces, depending on which of the 17 ways an institution classifies a postdoc. The World of Postdocs provides an overall perspective on postdoc status and is one of a number of insightful articles in the September 3, 1999 issue of Science. To gain a better insight as to what your classification really means, take a look at Postdocs Are Not All Created Equal in Science's Next Wave. If it is the plight of the postdoc that interests you most, Johns Hopkins Magazine ran the feature The Postdoc's Plight. IRS Publication 520 spells out that a postdoc on a fellowship may not have to pay income taxes as long as the postdoc is on a "qualified" fellowship: the grant is to be used for tuition, fees, and supplies only. If the terms of the fellowship also specify its use for room and board, the postdoc pays taxes on the fellowship. In the eyes of the IRS and the university, this fellow is a "student," and so does not usually receive university benefits an employee receives. The postdoc on a research grant, however, is normally considered a "temporary employee," who pays all taxes on grant money paid and receives some but not all university benefits. In any case, PIs don't have to pay the recommended $26,000 NIH/NRSA salary minimum.

To guard against low pay, the COSEPUP guide recommends that the postdoc and PI draw up a contract before the postdoc accepts an appointment. The contract should stipulate benefits and salary and how long they will last. Robert Mahley made it the Gladstone Institutes' mandate "to ease the financial burden of postdocs" by publishing and paying the minimum NIH salary. The COSEPUP guide recommends the "functional strategy" of paying postdocs what they would be worth with the same experience as a research associate or technician. Unless newly hired postdocs plan ahead, they may not have any leverage to negotiate a living wage that a postdoc on the opposite bench, with the same qualifications, may already receive.

Collaborate Wisely

As postdocs mature in their fields, they often need to reconcile their research interests with those of the PI. "PIs have complete control over where, how, and when a postdoc publishes," says Patricia Bresnahan, applications scientist and widely known advocate for postdoc reforms. The NRC's Commission on Life Sciences concurs: "The student-mentor relationship . . . can be distorted by the conditions of the mentor's employment of the student and limit the ability of students to take advantage of opportunities to broaden their education."

When they need to turn to someone for help, postdocs will find support from those who do not want postdocs to repeat their own bad postdoctoral experiences. These are people who manage national associations, faculty, and administrators, and who want to recruit, or to provide resources to enhance the recruitment of, talented postdocs through attractive postdoctoral programs.

Postdocs should seek out people like Lisa Kozlowski. In the 1990s, she was senior vice president of the Johns Hopkins Postdoctoral Association (JHPDA) until her JHPDA experience led to her new post as program director of Science's Next Wave, a weekly online "publication devoted to scientific training and career development."

In a related HMS Beagle article on the JHPDA, Kozlowski describes how "the JHPDA was and still is a grassroots effort." In 1992, one of her colleagues, Artul Varadharchary, surveyed the Johns Hopkins postdocs. Over the course of two years, postdocs got what they wanted, as well as admission to key administrative committees. These committees implemented an NRSA salary minimum, paid health insurance, and off-site parking. The JHPDA continues to work with the administration, most notably with Levi Watkins, associate dean for postdoctoral programs, to implement training reforms, like a standard written contract between postdoc and adviser.

Science's Next Wave provides links to at least 20 postdoctoral associations that advertise their support to postdocs online, with many addressing postdoc needs on a national level. Next Wave is a national resource to start and manage careers and postdoctoral associations through the dissemination of news and expert opinions, and it provides leverage to postdocs to negotiate contractual terms that postdocs at other schools already have. While Next Wave does not sponsor a national postdoctoral association, it facilitates collaboration among postdoctoral associations, specifically through its new Postdoc Network section, launched online in November 2000.

If Next Wave is the bulletin board for postdoctoral associations, the Postdoc Network is the sounding board for postdocs. Their mission "is to connect postdocs, their associations, and institutional offices, allowing these groups to share information and ideas." The Postdoc Network lives up to its mission by addressing controversial issues like the availability of visas for foreign nationals, funding career fairs to promote alternative careers for postdocs, and creating postdoctoral associations to help recruit postdocs. That's just what is now online. According to Emily Klotz, manager at the Postdoc Network, the Network also serves the very practical purpose as the "institutional memory" for postdocs while their leaders come and go. The organization, in fact, rescued the content of the University of California at San Francisco's (UCSF) Postdoctoral Scholars Association (PSA) Web site when a UCSF server crashed. To further its mission of disseminating information toward reforming postdoc programs nationally, the Postdoc Network will host a one-day national meeting Sharing Solutions to Postdoc Needs on March 3, 2001, in Washington, D.C., the day after the COSEPUP convocation.

To meet their needs more quickly, postdocs sometimes need to go beyond postdoc associations and collaborate with faculty and administrators. The Postdoc Network, for instance, featured an article by David Wiest, associate member at the Fox Chase Cancer Center. "I stress the faculty's involvement," he said during an interview, "because they are the ones most directly affected by the scarcity of postdocs." Wiest believes faculty and administration support are crucial to turn advanced postdocs into permanent research associates and, thereby, ease the labor crunch in the labs, improve the career prospects of postdocs, and make way for fresh postdoctoral talent to tackle new research.

Postdocs may also seek administrative support for reform from Sharon Milgram, who was tapped by the dean of the graduate school at UNC-CH, "to give postdocs a voice." Spurred by her resentment for the lack of benefits while she was a postdoc, Milgram is working hard so that a year from now, incoming postdocs will likely receive the NRSA/NIH salary minimum and a packet of information that lists the standardized benefits available at UNC-CH. She says the postdocs "will start to feel they have colleagues."

New editions of the COSEPUP guide, new postdoc associations coming online by the month, and freshly staffed Offices of Postdoctoral Affairs are signs that both postdocs and administrators are taking rational steps toward making postdoctoral appointments more sustainable and productive. It remains to be seen if postdocs, the bedrock of research in the United States, will need to enlist new leaders to address timely the growing concerns of the group.