NCI-Frederick among Top 15 Best Places to Work for Postdocs
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
"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.