WOMEN IN PLANT BIOLOGY

The Doctor Is Out (of Academia): Why Career Cross-training Is Critical for PhDs

I’ve been asked more than once whether my job as coordinator of the Multinational Arabidopsis Steering Committee (MASC) is similar to herding cats. Because I spend my time facilitating voluntary participation by academics throughout the world in efforts to advance plant biology and Arabidopsis functional genomics, I understand what provokes this question. I organize the annual Arabidopsis conferences, publish yearly research progress reports, and maintain informational web pages at The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR). However, a better analogy would be managing beavers. The professors I work with from MASC and the North American group, NAASC, are typically successful, advanced in their careers, and above all, overcommitted. They volunteer to help maintain international ties and assist the Arabidopsis community in addition to their “day job” writing grant proposals, publishing, supervising graduate students and postdocs, teaching, serving on committees—the list goes on. My job is to carry out MASC’s mission to support the plant research community and help MASC members attend to their academic beaver dams. I have a unique job for someone with a PhD in genetics, but the fact that I’m not following a faculty career track is not unusual at all.

Data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates, an annual study sponsored by federal agencies including NSF, NIH, the U.S. Departments of Education and Agriculture, and others, suggest that there are many people who will need to find employment as something other than a tenure-track faculty member. The most recent survey revealed that 60,486 U.S. biological sciences doctorates were granted between 1998 and 2007, including more than 7,100 in 2007 alone, making this the most doctorate-heavy field from all science, engineering, and nonscience fields analyzed (1). The heavy reliance of U.S. universities on foreign graduate students also contributes to the large pool of life sciences doctorates. In 1987, 30% of U.S. science and engineering doctorate recipients were foreign citizens, and in 2005, the proportion was roughly 44%. Further, a study of the “stay rates” of foreign life sciences doctorate recipients from U.S. universities found that the five- and 10-year stay rates after degree completion were 73% and 70%, respectively (2). I do not imply that foreign students and postdocs should be discouraged from coming to the United States or be required to return home. However, these data clearly show that the majority of foreign and domestic scientists, especially in the biological sciences, will find it extremely difficult to obtain employment if their primary career goal is to join the professoriate in the United States.

Supporting this notion, the most recent summary of education and employment from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) found that the number of doctorates in the life sciences has nearly doubled in the past 25 years, whereas the number of tenured and tenure-track faculty positions remained the same. These trends are reflected in the decreasing ability of recent graduates to obtain faculty positions: in 2006, only 17% of life sciences PhD recipients were in faculty positions five to six years’ postdegree, compared to 34% in 1981 (3). Further, the glut of PhDs and lack of faculty positions can have long-term consequences: a survey of doctorates from the early 1980s, well before the exponential increase in U.S. PhDs awarded began, found that just 33% of biochemistry PhDs had achieved faculty status 10 to 14 years’ postdegree (4).

Clearly there are far more people with biological science doctorates than can be supported in academia, which raises three obvious questions: (1) Where will they find jobs? (2) How should they prepare for multiple career paths? (3) How can universities and principal investigators help them prepare? In my case, I was extremely lucky to be in the right place at the right time; however, my position is temporary, funded by short-term grants.

As MASC coordinator, I’ve had opportunities to develop skills and experience things I never imagined during graduate school, where I researched mechanisms of DNA double-strand break repair in Arabidopsis thaliana. It wasn’t until my third year that I started questioning whether the much sought after tenured faculty position was what I really wanted to pursue. But admitting to nonacademic career interests was considered somewhat heretical and remains so today. Although I enjoyed conducting experiments, I saw that my research was narrowly focused, as if somehow the scientific “big picture” was beginning to fade. I also became aware of the intense competition for faculty jobs and that there were always many more candidates than positions. I was at a crossroads—should I stay to earn a PhD or should I cut my losses and quit? It’s difficult to walk away from a three-year investment, and there’s a bit of pride in finishing what you’ve started. I decided to finish my degree, but also started thinking about so-called alternative careers for scientists—a move supported by my PI, who admitted that she had no knowledge of nonacademic careers, had no contacts outside of academia, and could only encourage me to “go talk to people.” I met as many people as possible and found that most enjoyed talking about their careers and were helpful in providing advice or additional contacts.

One of my interests is developing and implementing science policy, so I was thrilled to participate in the National Academies’ Science and Technology Policy Fellowship Program, which involves graduate students and postdocs in national science and technology policy making (5). Fellows experience life outside the lab and meet other motivated and enthusiastic young scientists whose career vision also extends beyond academe. During the program I discovered that high-level, nonacademic science careers existed, but since most jobs were located near Washington, D.C., and my partner is unable to leave the Sacramento area, this didn’t solve my two-body problem. While I was in D.C., the position of MASC coordinator opened up, and the chance to investigate a nontraditional science career while learning new skills appealed to me. Upon being hired, I visited the MASC/NAASC chair in North Carolina, who informed me that I had just a few months to draft and publish the 35-plus page MASC report and finish organizing the upcoming international Arabidopsis conference. I was assigned also to represent MASC at a national conference the following week, investigate the process of developing a nonprofit organization, and reorganize the MASC website. During the visit I also met with faculty to begin planning the Arabidopsis conference taking place two years later and with others to solicit feedback on what should be addressed and improved by MASC. As I flew home, I wondered what I had gotten myself into by leaving benchwork behind, but I was invigorated by the new challenges and opportunities before me. Perhaps it was just a fear-inspired adrenaline rush, but I felt truly alive with possibilities.

Most tasks were new to me, but things slowly began to fall into place. Working with diverse people from all over the world helped hone my diplomacy skills and taught me the lesson that when there is a problem, it’s best to come ready with a solution. For example, when I saw that a preliminary conference speaker list contained few female scientists, I drew attention to the deficiency and suggested that more women be invited. When this approach failed, I developed a list of excellent female scientists and made the case that our chances for receiving federal conference funding were greatly diminished if there were so few female speakers. When the organizers next met, they had my suggestions at hand to consider, which made it easier to develop a more balanced program.

I’ve also found that skills learned in graduate school became useful to me as coordinator. My graduate adviser brought visiting scientists to the lab to listen to the students describe their research projects. At first I bumbled through my presentations, but over time I improved and became comfortable explaining my work to a general audience. During my travels as coordinator, these experiences helped me as I talked with seatmates about the importance of plant biology. On one flight I sat next to California Governor Schwarzenegger’s deputy legislative secretary in charge of K–12 education and explained how basic plant research contributes to society. He hadn’t heard of Arabidopsis and questioned the usefulness of plant research, but I convinced him of its value and gave him the latest MASC report describing the broader impacts of Arabidopsis research. That interaction reminded me that we can’t assume our research has obvious benefit to the public and that we still have a ways to go in convincing legislators and the public of the value of basic plant research.

Being MASC coordinator for the past three years has been quite challenging but also rewarding. One high point was being invited to give introductory remarks at the opening of the Gregor Mendel Institute in Vienna, Austria, which hosted the fourth Arabidopsis conference in 1990. Attendees at the 2006 conference in Madison, Wisc., will remember the night the fireworks display was canceled due to bad weather and, instead, we sat outside and watched the thunder and lightning sweep across the lake. It is satisfying to organize successful Arabidopsis meetings, whether in North America or around the world, as in the case of Beijing, 2007. I have been lucky to travel to numerous conferences abroad, including the International Society of Plant Molecular Biology meeting in Australia, where I visited a local wildlife park and had my picture taken holding a heavy koala with very large claws. Traveling taught me a few lessons: take time to appreciate new experiences and locations in case you are never able to return. I won’t forget standing on the Great Wall of China, walking through Venice, riding a train through the British countryside, or visiting the Austrian Academy of Sciences. I also learned from spending unscheduled layovers in Madrid and Salt Lake City that I should always keep clothes in my carry-on bag since canceled flights, delays, and lost luggage are common and airport clothes are expensive and ill-fitting.

As my funding runs out this year, I am confident that international dialogue between Arabidopsis researchers will continue. British scientists recently submitted a funding proposal including support for a U.K.-based MASC coordinator and currently await the reviews. Resources such as TAIR, ABRC (U.S.), and NASC (U.K.) will hopefully continue to receive strong support, and new initiatives like the iPlant Collaborative will move the entire field of plant research forward. I’m excited about the continuing push for translational and interdisciplinary plant research, which I hope will result in new collaborations and breakthroughs. Looking back to when I started as coordinator, I wonder if we all could benefit from the sparks of adrenaline and inspiration that come from staring off a cliff without knowing exactly what lies below or whether the parachute will open, but deciding to jump anyway. I expect to feel this way again as I look for new career opportunities and hope the next outcome is as rewarding as the last. T

References

1. National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics. November 2008. 2007 Records Fifth Consecutive Annual Increase in U.S. Doctoral Awards (NSF 09-307). http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf09307/.
2. Finn, Michael G. 2007. Stay Rates of Foreign Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities, 2005, prepared by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education for the Division of Science Resources Statistics of the National Science Foundation.
3. FASEB. November 2008. Education and Employment of Biological and Medical Scientists: Data from National Surveys (slides 24, 42, 45). http://opa.faseb.org/pages/PolicyIssues/training_datappt.htm.
   Nerad, Maresi, and Cerny, Joseph. September 3, 1999. Postdoctoral Patterns, Career Advancement, and Problems. Science 285(5433): 1533–1535.
4. Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellowship Program, http://www7.nationalacademies.org/policyfellows/.