Rutgers OPA
Weekly Newsletter | January 11, 2018
Things you should know...
Dear Rutgers Postdoc community,
This newsletter includes upcoming events and general announcements. Scroll down for more information.
Check also our website for a collection of previous OPA weekly newsletter.
Rutgers OPA Event
Drop-in Coffee Hour
If you are a postdoc interested in learning more about how to make the most of your time at Rutgers, prepare for life after Rutgers, or just want to share some coffee or tea in a safe space, come by and visit.
Location:
Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, Nelson Biology Laboratories, Room D354.
Registration is not required.
Friday, Jan 12, 2018, 02:00 PM
604 Allison Road, Piscataway Township, NJ, United States
Rutgers iJOBS Events
iJOBS Workshop: Strategic Online Networking to Propel Your Career by 2Actify
Don’t miss this unique and interactive presentation and workshop with our new Rutgers iJOBS partner, 2Actify! We’ll have a photographer taking your professional profile picture and you’ll learn unique techniques for Creating a Magnetic Online Profile.
As part of the Rutgers iJOBS mission to provide innovative career preparation and advancement skills for working in the professional environment, we piloted and evaluated 2Actify and they delivered a very effective program.
Why you should attend: 2Actify is a program that teaches a unique step-by-step system for expanding your network of professionals to build career opportunities and referrals. Online training videos and live interaction provides motivated career-seekers innovative concepts and techniques to:
- Land a rewarding position;
- Create future career opportunities; and
- Master online communication and “soft” skills
- January 18 from 2:30-6:30pm (profile pictures will be taken from 2:30-4:30 and program will run from 4:30-6:30)
- To register, click here
Location:
Rutgers Medical Science Building
185 South Orange Ave
Room B552
Newark, NJ 07103
iJOBS offers transportation. Limited spaces are available. Registration is required.
Thursday, Jan 18, 2018, 02:30 PM
185 South Orange Avenue, Newark, NJ, United States
Other Events
2018 NPA Annual Conference | Early Bird Registration Extended: January 12
Early bird registration for the 2018 NPA Annual Conference has been extended through Friday, January 12, 2018. To register for the Annual Conference click here.
Register Now: Funding & Launching a University Biotech Spin-Off |January 25
*On behalf of Christopher Perkins & Vincent Smeraglia, in the Office of Research Commercialization:
Postdocs interested in learning more about funding and launching a startup company in the biotech space are invited to attend this event. Registration is free, but required.
Featuring Leaders of Biotech Academic Spin-Offs in New Jersey
Biotech leaders will tell their story and provide guidance and recommendations on launching and funding their academic biotech spin-off.
Register now and join us at the Rutgers Visitor Center in Piscataway for networking and guidance from a panel of New Jersey's biotech leaders.
The panelists will share their respective paths to success, including insights into their strategy and decisions faced along the way to their companies spinning out from a university.
Time & Location
Thursday, January 25, 2018
5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Rutgers Visitor Center
100 Sutphen Rd, Piscataway Township, NJ 08854
For more information, scroll down to see flyer attached.
Regular OPA Events
Welcome & Information Session
The Office of Postdoctoral Affairs offers Welcome and Information Sessions to help orient new and current postdocs. If you are a postdoc who is new to Rutgers, or just curious about the resources that are available to you, we strongly encourage you to register for an upcoming one-hour session.
Next session will be on January 26th. Please register as space is limited.
Time: 9–10 a.m. or 11 a.m.–noon
Where: Office of Postdoctoral Affairs with Dr. Itzamarie Chevere-Torres located at Busch Campus, Nelson Biology Laboratories, Room D354. Registration is required.
For more information about sessions at Newark, contact Dr. Doreen Badheka badhekdk@gsbs.rutgers.edu on Newark Campus: Medical Science Building, Room H645.
Friday, Jan 26, 2018, 09:00 AM
604 Allison Road, Piscataway Township, NJ, United States
Fellowship Advising Sessions for Postdocs
Do you want additional feedback or guidance on your grant or fellowship proposal? Do you want to learn about grants and fellowships to support your postdoctoral training at Rutgers?
Schedule an appointment with Ben Arenger, Senior Fellowship Adviser, for an individual fellowship advising session.
Ben is available every Tuesday at our office by appointment only.
Individual Career Advising Sessions
If you're a postdoc looking for perspective on how to navigate your career path or career transition, contact Itzamarie Chevere-Torres to schedule an appointment.
For Newark postdocs, contact Doreen Badheka to schedule an appointment. Individual career counseling sessions for Newark postdocs will be at the Medical Science Building, Room H645.
Would you like to be our featured postdoc of the month?
Rutgers is proud to be home to a vibrant and growing community of over 600 postdocs! Would you like to highlight your research or your career goals on our website?
Contact us opa@oq.rutgers.edu
Is your faculty mentor exceptional?
Do you have a faculty mentor who has made a real difference in your life? We'd love to hear from you. Contact us opa@oq.rutgers.edu
Communicating Science A New Course for Science PhDs
*On behalf of Dr. Janet Alder:
Dear Rutgers Postdocs,
We have a few spots left in this class which we are going to open up to postdocs to audit with the understanding that they are committed to attending all sessions. It will be on a first-come first-served basis following the instructions below.
Communicating Science
A New Course for Science PhDs
You spend a lot of time doing outstanding, cutting-edge research. But are you spending enough time learning how to tell people what your research is all about and why it’s important?
Enroll in our “Communicating Science” course, and we’ll teach you how to communicate your research accurately and effectively.
Aims of the course: As a result of taking our course, you will learn for both oral and written communication how to:
- Identify the essential message that defines your research
- Recognize the diverse audiences you speak to about your research
- Engage your audience and tell them why they should care about what you do
- Speak clearly and vividly in language your audience will understand
Elements of the course include:
- Lectures provided by a multidisciplinary core faculty with expertise in science, education, communication and theater arts (plus guest speakers)
- Improvisational exercises
- Opportunities to practice your presentations and get immediate feedback
- Learning to be peer listeners and evaluators
- Collaboration with a professional in an aspirational career-related project
When: 2018 Spring semester; Wednesdays 4:00 – 7:00 PM; January 17 to May 2, 2018
Where: RWJMS Research Tower, Room V14, Busch Campus, Piscataway
What: Course # 16:718:560 and 6718 5600S, 3 credits, Pass/Fail. See syllabus attached.
Who: This course is designed for PhD students in the sciences who are 3rd year or above or postdoctoral fellows. Permission by the course director is also required.
How: Permission to register – contact Nicholas M. Ponzio, Ph.D. (ponzio@njms.rutgers.edu) and Janet Alder, Ph.D. (janet.alder@rutgers.edu) with the following information:
- your graduate program/track or department
- your advisor's name and e-mail address
- what your background education/training/experience has been
- what your longer-range career plans are
- what your expectations for this course are
- your propositional qualifying exam date
If approved, you will receive instructions on how to register. This course will be very popular and is capped at 20 people, so it will fill up fast!
For more details, go to
http://rwjms.rutgers.edu/education/gsbs/student_affairs/communicating-science.html
or
http://njms.rutgers.edu/departments/pathology/communicating_science/index.cfm
Supporting the Needs of Postdocs: 2017 National Postdoctoral Association Institutional Policy Report
A new institutional policy report from the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) in collaboration with Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society, seeks to improve the postdoc experience. It will be published as a supplement to the January/February 2018 issue of Sigma Xi’s magazine, American Scientist, and has been posted online at the Sigma Xi website and the NPA website.
Supporting the Needs of Postdocs: 2017 National Postdoctoral Association Institutional Policy Report summarizes the results from a 2016 survey of 130 NPA institutional Sustaining Members that hire postdocs.
Deadline: Next Week! |Postdoctoral Enrichment Program Deadline: January 16, 2018
The Burroughs Wellcome Fund is accepting applications for its 2018 Postdoctoral Enrichment Program.
The annual program awards grants of up to $60,000 over three years to support career-development activities for underrepresented minority postdoctoral fellows in a degree-granting institution in the United States or Canada whose training and professional development are guided by mentors committed to helping the fellow advance into a career in biomedical or medical research.
Up to twelve grants will be awarded for enrichment activities annually. Grants are meant to supplement the training of postdocs whose research activities are already supported by other sources.
To be eligible, applicants must
- have no more than thirty-six months of postdoctoral research experience (in a research laboratory) at the time of application and not be more than five years from his/her PhD;
- be nominated by a qualified mentor at the degree-granting institution where the applicant will conduct his/her postdoctoral/fellowship training;
- have secured a postdoctoral position with funding (including support from the mentor's existing research grants) at a degree-granting institution in the United States or Canada;
- be a member of a minority group underrepresented in biomedical research (i.e., American Indian or Alaska Native, black or African American, Hispanic, or Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander).
Collaborative Research Travel Grants | February 1
The Collaborative Research Travel Grant (CRTG) program provides up to $15,000 in support for relatively unrestricted travel funds to academic scientists (faculty and postdocs) at U.S. or Canadian degree-granting institutions. Grants must be used for domestic or international travel to another lab to learn new research techniques or begin or continue a collaboration to address biomedical questions. All proposals must be cross-disciplinary. Applicants with a doctoral degree in the physical, mathematical, or engineering sciences working on a biological problem are encouraged to apply.
Conversely, proposals from biological scientists who desire to collaborate with a physical scientist, mathematician, or engineer are also encouraged to apply.
Details
- Applicants must hold a Ph.D. in mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science, statistics, or engineering at the time of application and interested in investigating research opportunities in the biological sciences are eligible. Biologists holding a doctorate degree at the time of application who are interested in working with physical scientists, mathematicians, engineers, chemists, statisticians, or computer scientists to incorporate their ideas and approaches to answering biological questions are eligible to apply.
- Only proposals addressing questions in the biomedical sciences will be accepted.
- All proposals must be cross-disciplinary.
- Grants must be made to U.S. or Canadian degree-granting institutions only.
For more information or to submit a proposal visit the website.
Reading Material
Naturejobs Podcast: A fresh Start
*Podcast published on Naturejobs
Career adventures require a leap of faith and can be hard to navigate. Our first podcast of 2018 examines the impact of fresh starts and how having transferable skills can deliver career fulfilment for both science PhDs and retiring lab heads.
Listen here.