The times are changing: Is PhD Comics still relevant?

[molliebatmit]

You rarely see the official position title “postdoctoral scholar” (a.k.a. post-doc) anymore. Instead you see “Fellow”, “Research Fellow”, “Research Scientist”, or “Research Faculty”. “Fellow” or “Research Fellow” is usually considered a training position; however, there is often a very fine line between what is a “Research Fellow” vs. what is a “Research Faculty” as they often do identical jobs….For example, it is not uncommon to see a Research Fellow promoted to Research Faculty while doing the same job. The term “post-doc” would either be used as slang for a first year Fellow or a behind-their-back insult to a Research Faculty.

I’m in the biomedical sciences, where five-ish year postdocs are more or less a hard requirement for a professor position at a research-intensive school. My official job title is Research Fellow, but if you asked anyone (including me) what my position is, they would say postdoc.

Postdoc salaries in the biomedical sciences generally follow the [NIH NRSA payscale](NOT-OD-14-046: Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Stipends, Tuition/Fees and Other Budgetary Levels Effective for Fiscal Year 2014), which starts at $42k for zero years of postdoctoral experience and goes up to $55k for seven years. That’s certainly not nothing, but it’s enough to make people gripe, and it’s nowhere near the $80-100k salaries you’re quoting for senior postdocs in engineering.