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Before I started writing for the Addgene blog, sharing Chemistry Cat memes was how I used social media as a scientist. I mean, I had a LinkedIn page and a Twitter handle, but I wasn’t using them to my professional advantage. It wasn’t until I wrote a blog post about a research paper that explored how scientists connect on Twitter that I realized 1) a lot of scientists are using social media professionally, and 2) I needed to start using Twitter.

This post was contributed by Laura Desrochers, a postdoctoral scientist at AstraZeneca.

Why I chose an industry postdoc

I’m currently doing an industry postdoc in neuroscience at AstraZeneca’s Waltham site after doing a brief academic postdoc. Why did I switch? Well, my long-term goal was to enter industry since I was drawn to the idea of working as a team to develop therapies that could directly impact patients. And, to be honest, I’ve never enjoyed grant-writing. The more I talked to people with industry experience, the more I heard that getting into industry early would only help.

This post was contributed by Erik Snapp, the Director of Student and Postdoctoral Programs at the
Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Today's postdoctoral fellows (PFs) face a number of challenges ranging from long periods of training to limited job opportunities in academia - the main reason most people enter postdoctoral training. Similarly, there are several factors to consider when selecting a postdoc mentor and lab. These topics have been addressed in numerous essays and workshops (see the Careers essays in the journals Nature and Science, for example).

This blog post is about how to get the most out of your postdoctoral training experience. If you're going to commit to doing a postdoctoral fellowship, what are you signing up for and how can you do it well? Below, I briefly describe some tips for a successful postdoc fellowship.

Why is choosing the right lab such a big deal? It’s actually something you CAN choose and it will make a huge difference for your future career and life. You might see a lab head as choosing you, but in reality, you are giving your hard work and talent for many years (at a very low salary I might add). You have a right and responsibility to choose a lab where you can thrive and do your best work. This post is focused on choosing a lab, but almost all of these guidelines can apply to any workplace or job. It amazes me when the most analytic scientists seem to toss data-driven reasoning out the window when making decisions. We think scientists make choices based on logic and reason, but often our decisions are based on emotions and assumptions. I’m not just talking about simple things like “Which route should I take to get to work?”; we often make important life decisions without much logic - even choosing a training lab where we will spend the next 6 years.

This post was contributed by guest blogger, Gary McDowell, executive director of Future of Research.

On December 1st 2016, many postdocs working more than 40 hours per week could expect to see their salary raised to at least a new legal minimum of $47,476 per year, under updates to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). This was due to the threshold at which salaried workers receive overtime payment for working more than 40 hours per week increasing from $23,660 to $47,476 per year. This post discusses how a nationwide injunction against the FLSA is affecting universities' decisions to alter postdoc salaries - in some cases reversing these decisions entirely.