Postdoctoral Scholars: An Extension of the Data
Although the program survey and the faculty survey for the Assessment collected data on postdoctoral scholars, these data have yet to be analyzed. This section reports on some initial findings.1 First, and not surprisingly, most faculty members in every biomedical science field have spent time as postdoctoral scholars. This is shown in Table 7-1.
Postdoctoral experience is slightly less prevalent in biomedical engineering and bioengineering and in nutrition, which are not viewed traditionally as core fields in the biological sciences. Table 7-2 shows, however, that postdoctoral experience is age dependent. Older faculty have a smaller percentage of people with postdoctoral experience than more recent cohorts. For the 1990s cohorts, all fields, except for biomedical engineering and bioengineering and nutrition, are over or near 90 percent. The data for the most recent period, 2000 to 2006, is not a good indicator of postdoctoral training, since many of those in this cohort who will eventually take faculty positions have not yet completed their postdoctoral training.
The next tables provide information from the program survey about postdoctorates in 2005-2006. From Table 7-3, it is apparent that postdoctorates are concentrated in the largest programs. Further, as can be seen in Table 7-4, they are concentrated in the programs that are in the top two quartiles for research activity.
The largest numbers of postdoctorates are being trained in, and presumably are contributing to, the most productive research environments. It would be interesting to understand more about the effect of postdoctorates on the training environment for graduate students.
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1 Copies of the Program Questionnaire and Faculty Questionnaire can be found in Appendix D of the Assessment.
TABLE 7-1 Percent of Faculty with Postdoctoral Study by Field
Field | Faculty with no Post Doc | Faculty with Post Doc | No response to Post Doc Questions | Total Survey Respondents | Percent of total faculty surveyed | Percent of respondents to Post Doc Question |
Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology | 167 | 3073 | 319 | 3559 | 86.30% | 94.80% |
Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering | 439 | 1064 | 140 | 1643 | 64.80% | 70.80% |
Cell and Developmental Biology | 194 | 3241 | 399 | 3834 | 84.50% | 94.40% |
Genetics and Genomics | 145 | 1496 | 158 | 1799 | 83.20% | 91.20% |
Immunology and Infectious Disease | 217 | 1274 | 284 | 1775 | 71.80% | 85.40% |
Integrated Biological and Biomedical Sciences | 367 | 3206 | 429 | 4002 | 80.10% | 89.70% |
Microbiology | 110 | 1310 | 168 | 1588 | 82.50% | 92.30% |
Neuroscience and Neurobiology | 233 | 2474 | 317 | 3024 | 81.80% | 91.40% |
Nutrition Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental | 238 | 440 | 71 | 749 | 58.70% | 64.90% |
Health | 245 | 1603 | 192 | 2040 | 78.60% | 86.70% |
Physiology | 84 | 959 | 106 | 1149 | 83.50% | 91.90% |
Total | 2439 | 20140 | 2583 | 25162 | 80.04% | 89.20% |
NOTE: The data file with the faculty responses to the faculty questionnaire for whether they had a postdoctorate contains 2,583 blank cells; therefore, the percentage with a postdoctorate was computed for all responders to the survey and for those with data.
TABLE 7-2 Percent of Faculty with Postdoctorates by Field and Decade of Doctorate Receipt
Field | PhD in 1940s and 1950s (%) | PhD in 1960s (%) | PhD in 1970s (%) | PhD in 1980s (%) | PhD in 1990s (%) | PhD in 2000 to 2006 (%) |
Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology | 75.0 | 88.2 | 93.9 | 95.2 | 97.1 | 93.4 |
Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering | 42.9 | 47.0 | 60.3 | 60.8 | 79.1 | 76.6 |
Cell and Developmental Biology | 40.0 | 91.2 | 89.0 | 95.9 | 95.5 | 95.1 |
Genetics and Genomics | 25.0 | 87.7 | 90.7 | 92.7 | 93.0 | 79.7 |
Immunology and Infectious Disease | 57.1 | 91.5 | 86.6 | 85.8 | 87.6 | 73.4 |
Integrated Biological and Biomedical Sciences | 66.7 | 83.4 | 83.8 | 92.1 | 92.9 | 89.4 |
Microbiology | 80.0 | 89.3 | 88.8 | 92.4 | 95.8 | 91.6 |
Neuroscience and Neurobiology | 83.3 | 80.5 | 86.8 | 93.1 | 94.9 | 89.2 |
Nutrition Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental | 50.0 | 75.0 | 66.4 | 59.4 | 71.3 | 65.0 |
Health | 60.0 | 74.7 | 85.1 | 87.1 | 91.7 | 76.1 |
Physiology | 60.0 | 81.8 | 90.7 | 93.8 | 94.6 | 83.8 |
Total | 60.2 | 83.4 | 86.0 | 89.6 | 92.0 | 84.4 |
NOTE: Percentages are based on survey responses with data for both a postdoctoral appointment and year of PhD.
TABLE 7-3 Average Number of Postdoctoral Fellows in Programs by Field and Size of Programs Based on Student Enrollment
Fields | Program Size Quartiles, witd Largest Programs in Size Quartile 1 | ||||
Size Quartile 1 | Size Quartile 2 | Size Quartile 3 | Size Quartile 4 | Total | |
Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology | 36.3 | 19.1 | 18.1 | 9.0 | 20.3 |
Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering | 25.9 | 8.5 | 4.1 | 3.1 | 10.5 |
Cell and Developmental Biology | 52.3 | 28.5 | 18.4 | 10.7 | 27.2 |
Genetics and Genomics | 55.0 | 18.3 | 23.5 | 9.3 | 24.5 |
Immunology and Infectious Disease | 39.2 | 17.4 | 18.4 | 13.7 | 22.3 |
Integrated Biological and Biomedical Sciences | 97.4 | 24.2 | 12.8 | 4.4 | 34.8 |
Microbiology | 33.8 | 22.7 | 12.5 | 5.5 | 18.7 |
Neuroscience and Neurobiology | 51.1 | 24.4 | 19.5 | 7.0 | 24.8 |
Nutrition | 18.0 | 6.1 | 3.0 | 2.4 | 6.8 |
Pharmacology, Toxicology, and Environmental Health | 25.6 | 18.2 | 11.6 | 7.1 | 15.5 |
Physiology | 20.9 | 10.7 | 14.3 | 5.1 | 13.0 |
NOTE: Two programs were trimmed from the top and bottom of integrated biological and biomedical sciences based on the number of postdoctorates in those programs, to avoid distorting the percentages.
TABLE 7-4 Average Number of Postdoctoral Fellows in Programs by Field and Research Quality of Programs
Program Research Quality Quartiles with Better-Ranked Programs in “Research Quality Quartile 1” | |||||
Fields | Research Quality Quartile 1 | Research Quality Quartile 2 | Research Quality Quartile 3 | Research Quality Quartile 4 | Total |
Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology | 37.2 | 21.2 | 14.6 | 8.2 | 20.4 |
Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering | 23.5 | 9.6 | 5.1 | 4.3 | 10.5 |
Cell and Developmental Biology | 44.1 | 34.5 | 22.0 | 8.3 | 27.2 |
Genetics and Genomics | 33.4 | 33.8 | 26.1 | 5.9 | 24.5 |
Immunology and Infectious Disease | 30.1 | 33.7 | 18.8 | 9.3 | 22.3 |
Integrated Biological and Biomedical Sciences | 105.5 | 28.9 | 8.1 | 3.2 | 34.5 |
Microbiology | 27.1 | 25.1 | 16.4 | 7.0 | 18.7 |
Neuroscience and Neurobiology | 53.9 | 27.0 | 19.0 | 6.4 | 24.8 |
Nutrition | 11.1 | 13.9 | 2.4 | 1.7 | 6.8 |
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health | 27.6 | 9.8 | 11.0 | 14.0 | 15.5 |
Physiology | 20.2 | 18.6 | 9.9 | 4.2 | 13.0 |
Total | 41.4 | 23.7 | 14.4 | 7.1 | 21.2 |
NOTE: Quality quartiles are determined by taking the 0.05 Research Quality ranking.
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