Workshop on Enhancing Postdoctoral Professional Skills to Advance Research and Workforce Development

The University of New Mexico will host a workshop to effect sustainable engagement of postdoctoral scholars in the national research community. Postdoctoral scholars represent a critical component of the STEM professional workforce. Many NSF projects provide an opportunity for recently graduated doctoral students to pursue postdoctoral experiences and gain valuable disciplinary expertise and skills that enable them to pursue productive careers in academia, government, and business and industry.

Consequently, NSF requires postdoctoral mentoring plans for any project that employs postdoctoral scholars. Such plans routinely include training and opportunities related to academic careers such as advanced instrumentation, specialized analyses, and teaching and publishing. Yet, various other knowledge areas, skills, and capabilities are also central to postdoctoral career success such as leadership skills, collaboration, and team science.

The primary objectives of this workshop are to identify the specific knowledge, skills, and capabilities that postdoctoral scholars believe would contribute most to their ongoing research and future career success and to develop a best-practices guide that can lead to more impactful postdoctoral mentoring and training experiences.

The specific workshop activities include 1) designing and implementing a nation-wide survey of postdoctoral researchers to determine their needs for training with respect to particular knowledge areas, skills and capabilities, as well as the extent to which they receive this training as part of their academic training; 2) assembling a team of subject experts to design educational modules and training activities that would address the needs identified by postdoctoral researchers; and 3) provide guidance to faculty and administrators for designing and implementing more effective postdoctoral mentoring plans. Identification, adoption and deployment of the best practices and solutions identified as part of the workshop will result in postdoctoral scholars that are better prepared and more successful as they move into careers in academic, industry, and government.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.