NCI-Frederick came in at number 14 in the U.S. “Top 40 Best Places to Work for Postdocs,” based on a survey by The Scientist magazine published March 1. The results praised NCI-Frederick in the areas of career development opportunities and family and personal life. Postdoc resources noted were the development program and the postdoc office.

By Ashley DeVine, Staff Writer, Scientific Publications, Graphics & Media


Logo for The Scientist"I am very pleased that NCIFrederick has once again been ranked by The Scientist as one of the nation’s ‘Top 40 Best Places to Work for Postdocs.’ Training the next generation of research scientists is a core mission of NCI-Frederick, and one that we take very seriously. The staff at NCI-Frederick put a great deal of time and energy into providing the best possible environment for postdocs to work, and it is always rewarding for our staff to receive recognition by The Scientist for these efforts," said Craig Reynolds, Ph.D., associate director, National Cancer Institute, and director, Office of Scientific Operations, NCI-Frederick.

In 2009 and 2010, NCI-Frederick ranked 19 and 21, respectively, in the “Top 40 Best Places to Work for Postdocs.”

The web-based survey was posted on The Scientist’s web site (http://www.the-scientist.com) from September 8 to November 29, 2010. The magazine sent e-mail invitations to its readers and to web site registrants who identified themselves as non-tenured life scientists working in academia, industry, or noncommercial research institutions. The magazine received 2,881 useable and qualified responses to the survey.

Survey participants were asked to assess their working environment by responding on a scale of 0–5 (5 = strongly agree; 1 = strongly disagree; and 3 = neither agree nor disagree) to 38 positive statements representing nine areas: family and personal life, pay and benefits, equity, funding, value of the postdoc experience, career development opportunities and networking, and the quality of facilities and infrastructure, communication, and training and mentoring. Respondents were also asked to rate the importance of each of these positive statements on a scale of 0–5.

Seventy-six U.S. and 17 non-U.S. institutions that received five or more responses were included in the rankings. Scores for each of the 38 statements were averaged by institution and country.