Lisa Taneyhill

New policy benefits postdocs

Imagine being 35 and working all hours for low pay in an attempt to launch your career, hoping to one day land steady employment that includes health-care coverage.

Plight of the English major or outsourced software programmer? No. It’s a fact of life for postdoctoral scholars in many fields of study.

But Caltech is helping lead a national trend among universities to boost quality of life and benefits for postdocs, who sometimes toil in these positions for as many as six years after completing their PhD programs.

As of January, Caltech has equalized benefits coverage for all postdocs, regardless of funding sources, to provide such things as uniform health-care and life insurance.

That is one of many improvements for Institute postdocs achieved within the past few years, says Lisa Taneyhill, chair of the Caltech Postdoctoral Association (CPA). A postdoc herself, Taneyhill conducts neural crest cell research in the group of Marianne Bronner-Fraser, Ruddock Professor of Biology, and hopes to become a developmental biology professor one day.

In the meantime, when she isn’t pursuing her research, she is trying to improve working conditions for Caltech’s 576 postdocs. Her two-year term ends in May.

“It’s pretty ridiculous that, depending on where you get your funding, you will either have these benefits or you won’t. We’re talking basic things like health insurance, which everyone should have. Now that it is equalized, everybody is getting health and dental insurance, and everyone has equal access to benefits such as life insurance and long-term disability insurance. Those sorts of benefits are now available to all postdocs irrespective of their funding source.”

Taneyhill credits the campus administration and an active CPA with helping to achieve the spate of recent improvements. The office of Postdoctoral Scholars/Visitors Services, created in the Office of Human Resources in late 2002, tries to improve the quality of life for postdocs and their families. Headed by Eloisa Imel, the office provides individual check-in orientations for incoming postdocs to discuss benefits, tax issues, and other transitional topics. Given Caltech’s high percentage of international scholars, these issues often include visas. The office also hosts an “ESL Club for Postdoc Spouses” program, providing free English-language instruction and child-care services, and transitional housing services in conjunction with the Housing office.

“We are extremely fortunate at Caltech,” says Taneyhill, who recently returned from a national postdoctoral conference. The stories and accounts she heard there underscored the hardships experienced by postdocs at many universities. She applauds the Institute for adopting postdoc benefit standards, as well as providing funding for CPA programs, including monthly social hours and career events.

The relationship between a postdoc and a university is symbiotic. As young scholars carry out vital research that helps a university advance research frontiers, they gain valuable experience and education.

Two or three decades ago, PhDs could often go straight to independent research positions, and perhaps tenure-track jobs at universities. “Nowadays, particularly in the life sciences, more people go on to postdoctoral positions, but in some cases there are fewer jobs out there to move on to,” Taneyhill says.

As a result, reaching the goal of landing an independently funded, self-supporting position is taking longer and longer. According to Taneyhill, the median age for moving into an independent position is now 38.

Postdoc minimum pay starts at $35,000 annually at Caltech, but many divisions pay more. Supply and demand drives the salary for some disciplines, Taneyhill says.

For its part, the CPA is not inclined to rest on its laurels. Among its future goals, Taneyhill says, is persuading the administration to standardize pay for postdocs according to their years of postdoctoral experience, as is done at many comparable institutions. “We’re pretty cheap labor,” she says, adding that postdocs should be paid an amount commensurate with their years of experience and education.
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