Contributed in Recognition of National Postdoctoral Appreciation Week
Several mentors had shared with me their view of postdoctoral fellowships: after two or three years, it may not help your curriculum vitae to stay in the same place. In some ways, I couldn’t accept this information. I liked my work very much and was publishing and productive. Further, most postdoctoral fellows now are keenly aware of limited job availability, and of the competition for any toxicology position at the PhD level in any sector. In response, most of us have chosen to stay as postdoctoral fellows for longer periods of time, or to complete more than one fellowship, in order to stay connected to our toxicology interests. Balancing personal needs, professional development, and career interests in the current environment has presented all of us with difficult choices that demand action, not dejection. I think it is important to confront these realities with optimism and some long-term career investment.
First, I started thinking about scientific and career goals as separate but related concepts in order to appreciate what different positions might help me accomplish. No position need be forever, and interim positions might enable long-term realization of overall goals. My rationale was that achieving my goals will take a career, one with perhaps many “jobs” combined to set me on a path of highest impact. If a permanent position constantly supported one’s goals, what would be the purpose of the highly prized sabbatical or the infusion of new skills from a postdoctoral fellow?
Most recently, I was an Oak Ridge Institute for Science Education (ORISE) postdoctoral fellow at the US Environmental Protection Agency, developing high-throughput assays to evaluate in vitro endocrine activity as part of the broader concept of Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century. This work fit my long-term science objective, to use predictive assay and systems biology models to prioritize environmentally-relevant chemicals and mixtures. Meeting one of my major career objectives, to improve future prioritization and risk assessment, would require a position that allowed me to consider the impacts of high-throughput science on the risk assessment process. Having perspective from more than one sector on an issue also struck me as being really important in terms of creating partnerships and cross-sector solutions to toxicology problems.
Networking, far in advance of needing a position, was essential for my transition. Networking could mean applying and interviewing for jobs, giving seminars across sectors, and investigating collaborations. It might seem like a familiar cliché, but it is my experience that scientific engagement with others and personal courtesy are constantly returned to me somehow, if not directly.
The third concept I learned regarding my transition is the importance of diverse toxicology experience. I know this is a vague recommendation, but understanding different toxicology applications and sectors, pursuing short (or long) internships or lab visits, and learning persuasive writing are all skills that are needed to bring one’s research value to that next position.
Currently, I am engaged in a two to three-year position at Bayer CropScience in Human Safety Regulatory Toxicology, much like a postdoctoral fellowship in terms of its structure. In my opinion, this is an invaluable opportunity to transition my career to the next level. I increase our stakeholder involvement in initiatives like ToxCast, and help inform our activities through the lens of high-throughput science. This is a rewarding position that not only builds upon my background in high-throughput assay development, toxicology, and endocrine systems, but also challenges me to expand my computational toxicology, regulatory toxicology, and communication skillsets so that we can collaboratively develop approaches to using high-throughput science. The biggest keys to getting here were staying focused on how my previous laboratory research impacted the toxicology community, viewing my goals through a career trajectory, extensive networking, varied toxicology experiences, and some good luck. Now, I am expanding different sets of scientific and soft skills, and I feel I am making progress toward my long-term scientific and career goals by taking this leap.