A recent report from the National Academies reinforces a point we’ve known all along: Postdoctoral positions at ORNL and other national laboratories are great opportunities for young researchers.
“The Postdoctoral Experience Revisited” is less enthusiastic about university postdocs, especially for all but the relatively few emerging Ph.D.s destined for academic positions. Writing on Science magazine’s website, Beryl Lieff Benderly says the report “comes all the way up to, but does not actually state, some inconvenient realities: For all but a small percentage of aspiring researchers, doing a postdoc at a university is a lousy idea because it will neither result in an academic job nor otherwise advance one’s career.”
Postdocs at national labs and industry research facilities, on the other hand, fare better, according to the report.
“Testimony from current postdoctoral researchers and the experience of some committee members indicated that the experience of these postdoctoral researchers differs in significant ways from their academic counterparts: salaries are higher, the term of the appointment is usually shorter, their position in the institution is more clearly defined, and there is a reasonable chance that the postdoctoral researcher will eventually be hired for permanent employment.”
ORNL Postdoctoral Program Manager Danny McKenna isn’t surprised to hear that national laboratory positions are good for postdocs.
“When we brought the Postdoc Program in-house in 2012, it was largely in recognition of the strategic importance of postdocs to fulfilling the ORNL mission. However, we also recognized that we could make this a worthwhile experience for the postdocs regardless of what they do after their postdoc. Having an ORNL postdoc training experience is an enhancement to an academic resume that can open doors in academia, industry and other national labs.”
