How Long are Postdoctoral Fellowships? - Part 2

Following some interesting interactions with readers on Twitter and in the comments, it seems my initial post could have improved with 1) more data, and 2) break-down by gender. So, I spent some time this weekend digging through my last two Bumper Cars posts (2014-2015, 2015-2016) in order to provide a clearer picture.

How did we get here? Read the original post.

2015 - Random Trillium from a recent weekend hike

For starters, raw numbers - as of this writing, there are 194 confirmed new hires between the two lists. Of these, I was able to track down information about postdoctoral appointments for 132 (68%). Unfortunately, there's no consistent format for how candidates track their experience; I found myself cobbling it together from LinkedIn, university websites, ACS member profiles, and digital thesis repositories.

To keep myself honest, I'm pasting my assumptions below* this post, as before.

Now, to the numbers: First, the aggregate statistics - of the 132, here's the new mean/median/mode:

MEAN:	3.49 years
MODE:	3 years
MEDIAN	3 years

MIN:             0 year (no postdoc!)
MAX:            9 years

(n = 132)

So, roughly in line with what I had before. But what about the gender gap? Do men spend significantly less time as postdoctoral scholars?

First, it helps to clarify what the real split looks like: Of 132 candidates, 39 (29.5%) are female. This may be an admittedly small data set, but I see only a slight difference** in overall time: 

3.47 years for men (n = 93), 3.54 years for women (n = 39).

Edit (6/21): A good spot to insert a quote from a 2013 Beth Halford piece in C&EN:

"For one, although there are no hard numbers to point to, some say people are spending more time in postdoctoral positions. In chemistry, one to two years used to be the norm, but that time frame may be creeping up. Some chemists tell C&EN that they are spending five or more years doing postdoctoral studies."

Seems to be the case, at least to me.

Of course, the best way to make this data set relevant is to send in even more new names! Once I can figure out a good mechanism to capture pharma / gov't hires, I'll try to expand the analysis. Who knows? Maybe we'll get a real live database set up...

--

*These postdocs reflect faculty appointments; I'm clearly not counting those who went into government, pharmaceutical, industry, or left chemistry entirely. If someone has a good idea for how to capture that data, I'm all ears.

Counting time: If someone gave a graduation year - "Ph.D. 2009"-  I assumed a postdoctoral stint until their faculty start date. For example, 2015 start = 6 years a postdoc. If, however, they provided a range - "postdoc 2012-2014" - I assumed that they postdoc'd the difference of that time, or 2 years, despite the fact that, depending on start and end dates, that could reasonably be interpreted as any length of time between 13 months (Dec 2012-Jan 2014) and 36 months (Jan 2012-Dec 2014).

Of the 77 new faculty starting in 2015 or 2016 (as of June 2015), I was only able to find bio-sketch information for half. The following people from my list are represented in the above statistics: Li, Engle, Hyster, Matson, Menard, Personick, Thoi, Tsui, Wasa, Blakemore, Browne, Devery, Gahlmann, Kempa, Limmer, Nelson, Sing, Thompson, Bantz, Hubbard, Garcia-Bosch, Huo, Wei Li, Mirica, Rossini, Seiple, Wu, Anand, Boudreau, Genereux, Jiang, Sletten, Theberge, Fu, Ke, Conley, Raston.

**One additional complicating factor? It's tough to tell who's a postdoc anymore. This study only includes candidates who list their experience as "postdoc", "postdoctoral fellow", "research associate", or something of that ilk. Senior researcher? NSF Fellow? Visiting researcher? Lab assistant? Are these postdoctoral positions, or not? Tough to tell, so I excluded them. Thus, I may be artificially shortening certain candidates' timelines.

Additionally, certain candidates had "gaps" of 1-2 years in their experience, and I could find no information for what they did. Took time off? Worked somewhere that didn't pan out? Had a child? I simply don't know.

Chem Coach Wrap-Up: Lessons Learned

Here's all the various #ChemCoach days, in chronological order:

Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Late Entries

My Excel skillz surely impress no one, but if I were to try to divide all 61 'entries' (59 posts, 2 HM) into 'job boxes':

(Maybe not *quite* as awesome as CD's pie chart)

A few other observations, building on what Chemjobber, Deb, and Rachel have already mentioned...

Introverts? Ha! - I know what you're thinking: sample bias. The folks most likely to write into a blog carnival already pre-select themselves for extroversion, right? Allow me to retort: reading through the posts, many chemists actually seem to enjoy public interaction! Sometimes, they go out of their way to seek it. Chemists quip movie lines, cold-call contacts, give public demos, and even go to metal shows (music, not metallurgy).

Great Work, Team! Next week,
we''ll start two-a-days!

No. Standard. Day. - OK, I hear you loud and clear, guys! No one wanted to be that stereotypical "mad scientist," chained to their bench mixing potions in a dank, dark basement lab. The majority of you reveled in the professional chaos (and freedom!) of living in the moment, with no set agenda to tie you down. Coffee helped.

Demographics - Who says science is just for boys? Who says it's just for girls? The carnival definitely leaned masculine overall (43:18 men : women). Interesting factoid, though: nearly all the female entrants wrote in early, while more men were likely to procrastinate or send late-night emails...

The Times, They Are A-Changin' - I'll echo one last sentiment CJ touched upon - look back at that pie chart. The best-represented slice remains "lab scientist;" however, that block is clearly shrinking relative to where it might have been in the late '90s.

Thanks again to everyone who participated, and thanks to those who helped me get the word out.

See you all next year! - See Arr Oh