Abstract
Postdoctoral training positions are becoming more common in the human factors and ergonomics (HFE) discipline. However, conversations related to training in the HFE discipline have largely focused on undergraduate and graduate education. This panel assembles both postdoctoral mentors and former trainees who collectively have a diverse set of HFE-related postdoctoral experiences. By panelists discussing their experiences, observations, and recommendations related to postdoctoral training with the audience, the panel session will support HFE faculty and students in making more informed decisions about if and how a postdoctoral experience (either as a mentor or trainee) could be a part of their career development in HFE.
Introduction
A postdoctoral researcher is defined as “an individual who has received a doctoral degree (or equivalent) and is engaged in a temporary and defined period of mentored advanced training to enhance the professional skills and research independence needed to pursue his or her chosen career path” (Institute of Medicine, 2014). Recently there has been a decline in the percentage of new doctoral recipients choosing postdoctoral positions as their next career step (Gordon et al., 2023; Langin, 2022). This downturn is a reversal of the decades-long trend of steadily increasing numbers of doctorally-trained scientists and engineers pursing postdoctoral training (Institute of Medicine, 2014). The declines have prompted a renewed interest in evaluating and adjusting the value proposition of these positions for both mentors and trainees (Mangan, 2022; Yalcin et al., 2023).
Most documented information about postdoctoral training is based on positions in the biomedical and physical sciences as these are the fields where the majority of postdocs work (Alberts et al., 2014). In these fields, around 80% of postdoctoral positions are university or research center-based and are created as part of a principal investigator’s research grants (Institute of Medicine, 2014). One concern underlying studies of this postdoctoral researcher population is the significant surplus of postdocs relative to the number of research-intensive job openings where the postdoctoral experience would be relevant (e.g., tenure-track faculty positions) (Alberts et al., 2014). The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine issued a report with recommendations related to improving five aspects of the postdoctoral experience including “period of service, title and role, career development, compensation and benefits, and mentoring” (Institute of Medicine, 2014). A sixth overarching recommendation was for more accurate data collection about the postdoctoral population in terms of demographics, career aspirations, working conditions, and career outcomes (Institute of Medicine, 2014). Given the likely existence of discipline-specific nuances in the nature of postdoctoral experiences, the report authors urge professional societies to “explore what they can do to enrich what is known about [their discipline’s] postdoctoral researchers” (Institute of Medicine, 2014).
Prior conversations related to training in the human factors and ergonomics (HFE) discipline have largely focused on undergraduate and graduate education (Dul et al., 2012; Hannon et al., 2021; Stone et al., 2016). To our knowledge, no literature or HFES sessions have focused on postdoctoral experiences in HFE. This panel seeks to begin addressing this gap. The panelists all have graduate training in the HFE discipline and all have experience as a postdoctoral researcher and/or postdoc mentor at a university or research center. Collectively, they have a diverse set of experiences in terms of their research domain focuses, graduate training focus within HFE, postdoctoral training duration, postdoctoral training institution(s), and domain(s) of postdoctoral training. Through the panelists’ sharing of their experiences, observations, and recommendations related to postdoctoral training, this session will enrich attendees understanding of the particulars of postdoctoral experiences in HFE. The goal of the session is to support HFE faculty and students in making more informed decisions about if and how a postdoctoral experience (either as a mentor or trainee) could be a part of their career development in HFE.
Mentor Perspectives
Perspective from Dr. Kelly Caine (as both mentor and former postdoc)
As a faculty member, one important thing to remember when considering creating a postdoc role is that it you are taking on a mentorship responsibility. Mentoring a postdoc takes work, just like supervising graduate and undergraduate students. When I host a postdoc, I feel a responsibility to help them accomplish their goals. If their goal is to get a job as a professor at an R1, I try to help them gain grant-writing and publication experience that would make them competitive for such a role. Also, consider that the potential postdoc may move a great distance to come work with you. They may not have family or a support system locally. This is a big commitment! One of my postdocs moved from Belgium to work with me. I was honored! And I was aware of what a big move it was for her.
A strategy I’ve found useful in mentoring postdocs is to have an individualized mentorship plan. It should take into account the career goal of the postdoc and their existing experience. A good plan will show a path from the current experience to the experience needed to get the eventual job the postdoc wants.
As a mentor, one thing I look for in a post-doc is the fit between the post-doc’s goals and my goals. If a post-doc wants to work at a teaching college as a professor, I’m probably not the right post-doc mentor for them. On the other hand, if they just got their PhD in computer science, and they want to learn about human-centered computing and human factors so they can learn how to run user studies, I’d be a great fit. In general, people looking to gain multidisciplinary experience may especially benefit from a postdoctoral training experience. For example, my PhD is in Engineering Psychology, but I wanted a position in computing. My post-doc gave me the training and opportunities I needed to work in a school of computing.
In giving advice to those interested in a post-doc position, I would say, like a lot of positions in academia, being proactive is the best thing you can do to get the most out of an experience. If you want to gain experience writing grants, tell your advisor, and ask them to show you the ropes. If you want to publish in a certain venue, read a lot of papers in that venue and then figure out how your own work may fit. When I was looking at post-docs, I looked for positions with researchers I respected and who I thought I could learn a lot from. If I were able to do a post-doc now (why aren’t there post-post-docs?) I’d also value the opportunity to live in a new and perhaps foreign place. I also think it’s valuable for postdoc positions to come with opportunities and funding for travel to participate in workshops and conferences where trainees will have the opportunity to talk about their research, meet colleagues in their field, and make their name known in the research community.
Panelist Bio
Kelly Caine is Dean’s Professor in the College of Engineering, Computing, and Applied Sciences and Associate Professor in the Human-Centered Computing Division of the School of Computing at Clemson University. She is the founder and director of the Humans and Technology Lab (www.hatlab.org) where she leads multidisciplinary research in in human-centered computing, privacy, usable security, human factors, and human-computer interaction, and health informatics. Her work in these areas has been recognized with awards from the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, the National Science Foundation, the CURI fellowship, the American Public Health Association, and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. She is co-author of Understanding Your Users: A Practical Guide to User Research (2015; with Catherine Courage and Kathy Baxter) and has published over one hundred academic manuscripts in venues ranging from ACM CHI to the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. She loves teaching students about science and has mentored more than 60 students, ranging from undergraduates to post-doctoral fellows, as research assistants in her lab. Prior to joining Clemson, she was a Post Doctoral Fellow then Principal Research Scientist in the School of Computing at Indiana University and a UX researcher at Google. She holds degrees from the University of South Carolina (B.A.) and the Georgia Institute of Technology (M.S. and Ph.D.). For more see www.kellycaine.org.
Perspective from Dr. Ken Catchpole
Postdoctoral research training can provide valuable practical experience in conducting HF research within specific areas, building experience in project management, publication and grant applications, and providing time to develop to establish the trainee in a specialized area of research of their own interest. Within healthcare, this has provided an opportunity to work on existing HF research projects; become fully immersed in the healthcare work environment and explore a variety of opportunities for developing practical, fundable, high-quality research.
This intense focus on research for two years creates a solid publication record and the experience behind it that helps substantially if and when the post-doctoral researcher moves into a faculty or teaching position. They will already have begun to establish a reputation and success in one or more areas, a solid publication record, and will have likely established collaborators both in the HF field and one or more domains of application. My post-doctoral researchers have worked in sterile processing, robotic surgery, anesthesia medication delivery, cardiac surgery, perfusion, labor and delivery, retained foreign objects and clinical handovers as well as being exposed to a range of other projects. During that time, they have usually published around 10 peer-reviewed journals, and presented at 2 national conferences. Certainly, for the applied nature of patient safety work, this has provided an experience of clinical HF research and practice that could not have been attained within a traditional university role.
So, arguably, a post-doc position provides a springboard for a research career, with unique experience that can then be built on after they transition to a faculty position.
Panelist Bio
Ken Catchpole is the SmartState Endowed Chair in Clinical Practice and Human Factors at the Medical University of South Carolina. Ken has spent the last twenty years applying human factors principles in healthcare, working alongside clinicians at the front line to understand everyday challenges and address a broad range of reliability, safety and performance concerns from a human-centered perspective. As a PI on multiple federally-funded grants, he has authored over 130 peer-reviewed journal articles exploring and implementing systems engineering approaches to healthcare improvement, and has helped to pioneer embedded clinical human factors practice as way to apply and spread these principles.
Perspective from Dr. Farzan Sasangohar
Post-doctoral training is an important step to further develop one’s academic and professional skills, particularly for research-focused careers. For HFE doctoral students interested in tenure-track faculty positions, post-doctoral training has several important benefits: 1) Identifying a direction for future research. Most dissertation research projects in the United States are convergent with a funded project with the de facto ownership of the research given to the principal investigators (i.e., the academic advisors). In this context, students’ “freedom” to choose the direction of the project or being playful about the application of methodologies or domains of interest to them may be somewhat limited. Postdoctoral research experience may provide the flexibility to explore other areas of interest or at the very least get exposed to new areas, methodologies, and domains which is key in the formative stages of identifying their direction for future research. 2) Providing a flexible and “safe” environment to learn about research funding. A necessary condition for success in a tenure-track position, especially in US R1 (research-intensive) universities is the ability to secure research funding. Funding is also one of the main criteria used to evaluate faculty for tenure and promotion. Despite its importance, doctoral students in most academic programs seldom get exposed to proposal writing, and related skills such as proposal management and budgeting. Usually, such skills are obtained in the first few years of a tenure-track job taking significant amount of time and resources away from the limited “tenure clock.” Post-doctoral training provides an opportunity to learn such skills in a safe environment. 3) Picking up necessary skills to manage a research lab. Unlike doctoral studies that involve building depth in conducting research for a specific problem, a significant amount of faculty’s effort is allocated to managing their research program. Postdoctoral fellowship provides an opportunity to pick-up valuable skills in lab management, project management, and student mentorship that will facilitate transition to an early career in academia. 4) Establish evidence of scholarly productivity. Often, doctoral students’ scholarly record (i.e., peer-reviewed journal publications) does not represent their potential due to various factors including long review processes, workload, academic advisors’ dissemination style, and limitations related to the research projects’ publishability or dissemination restrictions. Postdoctoral training will provide the candidates with the opportunity to polish their writing skills, buys time to disseminate their dissertation research, and enable participate in new publication efforts.
Panelist Bio
Farzan Sasangohar is an Associate Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering (primary) as well as Environmental and Occupational Health and Biomedical Engineering (courtesy) at Texas A&M University. He is also faculty at the Center for Outcomes Research at Houston Methodist Hospital and an Adjunct Professor of Population Health at Weill Cornell Medical College. He is the co-editor of Design for Health and has published more than 60 peer-reviewed journal publications. He currently serves as the Editor-in-chief for Human Factors in Healthcare and Chair of Technical Program Committee of the HFES Annual Meeting. He has mentored more than 10 postdoctoral fellows, six of whom currently hold faculty positions. Dr. Sasangohar’s research interests include user-centered design and evaluation of remote and continuous monitoring tools for physical and mental health and performance in sociotechnical systems.
Postdoc Perspectives
Perspective from Dr. Karen Chen
Researchers right out of their doctoral program are the typical candidates considered for a postdoctoral position, and certainly those who consider postdoctoral positions. One of the many reasons why a postdoctoral position might be available is because the research tasks are more demanding and beyond the capabilities of a doctoral student. There are positions within an academic institution or national laboratories, or even positions affiliated with the research and development units within the private sector. For trainees who intend to pursue a career in academia, they may choose a postdoctoral position in an academic setting to hone in their proposal writing skills. No matter with which an organization this position is affiliated, a trainee should always have a clear vision on what they intend to get out of the postdoctoral experience, and not treat this experience like an extension of graduate school.
From a postdoctoral trainee’s perspective, this position should aid the new doctoral researcher in becoming an independent researcher. While mentors should help guide trainees, trainees should first define their personal goals during the postdoctoral experience as well as their career goals. It would be helpful by first identifying their own strengths and weaknesses, and thereby defining their personal goals. For instance, a trainee with great leadership skills and wishes to pursue a tenure-track faculty career may continue to build that by mentoring undergraduates or master’s students as part of their postdoctoral experience. On the other hand, a trainee might not have the chance to take part in proposal writing as a student, and therefore developing grantsmanship would be very important.
As for mentors, they should support the trainee by starting with more hands-on guidance to hands-off independence. In other words, mentors and trainees should have regular check-ins so that trainees would stay on track and remain productive. It is also important for mentors to realize and remember that trainees are not laborers or secretaries who take care of lab’s operation. There should be mutual respect between mentors and trainees. Mentors should respect that trainees do have a doctoral degree, which leads to setting performance expectations where trainees should conduct quality research. While trainees certainly have doctoral degrees, they should not shy away from asking questions since no question is a stupid question. Overall, a postdoctoral position should be like a two-way street, where there is communication and respect, and both the mentor and trainee will gain from this experience.
At the end of the day, personal motivation is fundamental to success. A mentor could provide immensely valuable advice, but it is up to a trainee to take action and fully harness the postdoctoral experience.
Panelist Bio
Karen B. Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at North Carolina State University. Karen Chen received her PhD degree from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2015. Her interest is in human performance and behavior in virtual reality, and human-computer interaction.
Perspective from Dr. Sudeep Hegde
Postdocs in human factors (HF) are increasingly common, a trend that could be driven by multiple factors: there are growing numbers of HF faculty positions and labs; there are more interdisciplinary research programs looking to hire HF experts; HF faculty are having increased success with winning research grants; and it may also be that the ratio of students graduating with HF degrees to the number of full-time tenure/non-tenure academic positions available is increasing. Regardless, postdoctoral training is helpful to assimilate the skills developed during the PhD, and to grow towards independence as a researcher. Postdoctoral training may be leveraged by the trainee to prepare for different types of research career paths. Typically, this would be university tenure-track faculty positions, or non-tenure track faculty positions, or research scientist positions at national laboratories and industries. Success, in all of these types of positions, involves being able to obtain significant funding and publishing papers in top peer-reviewed journals. To that end, a postdoc, if used well, would allow one to ‘hit the ground running’ right at the start of the career path.
It is important to avoid the pitfall for a postdoctoral trainee of being a ‘glorified’ doctoral student in effect. One of the ways to grow toward independence is to apply for a competitive postdoctoral research grant, responding to a relevant funding opportunity with one (or more) of several federal agencies. This not only helps develop proposal writing skills, but if the proposal is successful, this would provide a major competitive advantage during the eventual job search. Even if it’s not successful, the trainee has a better chance at submitting a successful proposal once they begin a long-term academic position. A postdoc can also be an opportunity for the trainee to expand their research skill set. This can include learning new techniques, such as new ways to model data, and exploring new areas of application of tools and methods that you may be familiar with. It is important to ensure that the projects are yielding appropriate research products, mainly, papers in peer-reviewed journals. For a student evaluating postdoctoral roles, it is important to consider the expertise and research areas of the principal investigator (PI), and whether they can provide mentoring in skills and areas that the student doesn’t already have, and would be beneficial to their planned career path. A further consideration would be the institution of the PI, and whether there are resources available for postdocs to hone their skills, e.g. a postdoctoral association that regularly conducts skill development workshops.
Panelist Bio
Sudeep Hegde, PhD, is an assistant professor of Industrial Engineering at Clemson University, SC, United States. He has a PhD and an MS in Industrial and Systems Engineering, and a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering and Management. His primary research interests are in the study of adaptive capacity in complex sociotechnical systems, such as healthcare. He has published numerous articles in areas related to cognitive systems engineering, resilient healthcare, organizational learning, and human factors. Prior to joining Clemson, he was a Harvard Research Fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (2015-18), a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University at Buffalo (2018-19), and an Assistant Research Engineer at Texas A&M University (2019-2020).
Perspective from Dr. Dustin Souders
Postdocs, somewhat unfortunately, are becoming increasingly necessary in large part because understanding research funding mechanisms and how to procure funding is an important part of enabling high impact research in technologically sophisticated areas as many HF researchers seek to do. Training in this information isn't as readily apparent/available at the graduate level, but in many cases, it is a fundamental part of a postdoc's existence. Aside from students who need to strengthen their understanding of how to procure funds for research, students who are tenure-track position bound and want or need refinement in other areas that such a multifaceted role demands (e.g., technical skills, teaching experience, broadened network) would benefit from a well-selected postdoc.
Panelist Bio
Dustin Souders [pronounced Soww-durs] is an assistant professor in the Psychology Department at Clemson University in the Human Factors Area and head of the STAAR Lab. Leveraging his knowledge of aging, technology use and adoption, and transportation technologies, Dustin's research focuses on making advanced vehicle technologies more useful, safe, and attractive to older adults as they seek to maintain their community mobility in later life. His postdoc was multidisciplinary at Purdue University, where he worked with Civil Engineers and Policy Researchers on research on the ethical, legal, and social issues related to the deployment of connected and automated vehicles.
