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U.S. postdoctoral careers in life sciences, physical sciences and engineering: Government, industry, and academia

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  • Maya Denton
  • Maura Borrego
  • David B Knight

Abstract

Discussions about science and engineering postdoctoral researchers focus almost exclusively on academic postdocs and their chances of eventually securing tenure-track faculty positions. Further, biological sciences dominate policy research and published advice for new PhDs regarding postdoctoral employment. Our analysis uses the Survey of Earned Doctorates and Survey of Doctorate Recipients to understand employment implications for physical sciences and engineering (PSE) and life sciences (LS) graduates who took postdoctoral positions in government, industry, and academic sectors. We examine postdoc duration, reasons for staying in a postdoc, movement between sectors, and salary implications. There is considerable movement between employment sectors within the first six years post-PhD. Additionally, postdocs in PSE are shorter, better paid, and more often in nonacademic sectors than postdocs in LS. These results can help science and engineering faculty discuss a broader range of career pathways with doctoral students and help new PhDs make better informed early career decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Maya Denton & Maura Borrego & David B Knight, 2022. "U.S. postdoctoral careers in life sciences, physical sciences and engineering: Government, industry, and academia," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(2), pages 1-18, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0263185
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0263185
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Lekang Ren & Danyang Xie, 2025. "Assessing Co-Authored Papers in Tenure Decisions: Implications for Research Independence and Career Strategies in Economics," Papers 2501.05653, arXiv.org.
    3. Byrne, Eamon & MacKenzie, Tim MG & goswami, aranyak & Suresh, Samyuktha & Ahmad, M. Usman, 2023. "SURPAS Long Range Planning Report 2023," OSF Preprints t5mwn_v1, Center for Open Science.
    4. Andrea I. Luppi & Jascha Achterberg & Samuel Schmidgall & Isil Poyraz Bilgin & Peer Herholz & Maximilian Sprang & Benjamin Fockter & Andrew Siyoon Ham & Sushrut Thorat & Rojin Ziaei & Filip Milisav & , 2024. "Trainees’ perspectives and recommendations for catalyzing the next generation of NeuroAI researchers," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-7, December.

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