Annual NPA Conference brings together PDOs and PDAs

By Wiley Larsen, Program Manager

The National Postdoctoral Association convened it’s annual conference April 12-14 in Orlando with a collection of around 400 postdocs and postdoc office directors. Like last year, the split was about 1/3^rd  Postdoc Office Directors (“PDOs”) and 2/3^rd  Postdocs who are in a leadership position in their local postdoc association (“PDAs”) or networks.  

Here are some of the key sessions and my own take-aways from this year’s conference: 

North Carolina State University’s Accelerate to Industry (a2i) Program:  The program engages industry partners who provide small teams of graduate students and postdocs with a project that involves a problem that the company is trying to solve. The program provides training modules, leadership presentations, company site visits, and access to internships.  They offer a training session to postdoc office directors during the summer (Jun 12-14), and they license the program to other universities at no cost.  We should look at implementing their a2i program or consider creating something similar on our own. 

The Postdoc Experience – Negotiations. This session was focused on how postdocs can improve communication with their supervisors.  Key concepts were Tactical Empathy and BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement).  Ninety percent of negotiation is being prepared: knowing what your position is, knowing what the other party’s position is, being prepared to make your case.  It is important to shift your focus from what you want (positions) to understanding why you want something (interests). The speaker also recommended the book “Getting to Yes” by Roger Fisher.  

Creating an “All Star” Linked In profile:  This session was led by Josh Henkin, the keynote speaker for our upcoming ASU Postdoc Career Conference.  I learned that having an All-Star profile is actually a thing, with certain requirements, and that you need to have an All-Star profile to be viewable by recruiters.  This session was extremely informative, and drove home the point that our postdocs have to have a Linked In profile if they want to have success at getting an industry job. 

NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowships – Strategies for Success:  This was a how-to session that gave tips on applying for NSF postdoctoral fellowships. The session provided examples of good and bad “project summary” and “broader impact” statements and allowed participants to react to and comment on the likely outcomes.  

The NPA brings its annual conference out west next year to San Diego!  Our goal is to be more proactive in this organization. I think it would be great to have a poster at the poster session (possibly about our Postdoc Career Conference), and to bring a few of our leaders from the postdoctoral network at ASU out to the conference.

If you would like to sign up for a complimentary membership to the NPA, email Wiley.