It's been ages since I've written a diary, and this is going to be a really odd one -- a mix of hope and despair, of pleading and cynicism, a request for reassurance and even a bit of a sales pitch.
It's got it all. It's the story of the death of a scientific career in 21st Century America...and what may rise from its ashes.
Still with me? Follow me below the fold.
First, a little introduction and explanation.
I'm a molecular virologist that's just been released from a postdoctoral position in the National Cancer Institute (NCI). I also suffer from the aftereffects of nearly fatal ulcerative colitis, cured by total colon removal surgery. By enormous effort (and alot of support from my advisor), I managed to get through my dissertation defense, the initial surgery, and a move to the NIH in a matter of a month. I got paid medical leave to do the second surgery, whose recovery also took about a month. Then I began my current postdoc.
A 'postdoctoral fellowship' is what most newly minted science PhDs get right out of graduate school, a journeyman position of sorts. They are temp positions that pay a fraction (often less then 50%) what a new assistant professor might make, and as little as a third what a new industry "Scientist I" position might make. The primary goal of a postdoc is to get what's called a 'first author' publication, one where you do most of the work on a scientific project, generate most of the data (though almost never all!) and write the resulting scientific paper for publication. First author publications are the chits that determine if you get a job or not once your dues are paid.
Originally, if you worked 2-3 years and got a reasonable first author pub out of a postdoc or two (at most), you'd get a decent assistant professorship, or a bench science position in industry, if that was your bag. (And it was not at all encouraged; you were expected to go straight from an academic postdoc to an academic professorship).
But for quite some time now, it's been near impossible to make the transition from postdoc to full time work in academia. (A good article is Slaves to Science, in Salon). The problem is that science has an insatiable appetite for cheap labor -- and the cheap labor to be had is graduate students and postdocs. So many postdocs have been seeking 'alternate careers' outside of academia. Fine, I thought. That's a good idea. The tenure grind didn't appeal much to me anyway.
Then economic Armageddon happened, and the teabaggers took over the House. Austerity became the rule of the day, and the slashing and burning began. We all know the story.
But something happened that has very rarely happened in science before -- all three sectors, government, academia, and industry, started contracting simultaneously. First, my four-year postdoc was quickly turned into a two year postdoc, when my scientist-mentor declined to give me a slot in her lab once my fellowship ran out. (Turned out she was losing slots -- I wasn't the only 'new hire' to get the axe). Then a whole series of contacts within the NIH and NCI, all the way up to the top of the division, started giving me the same message: "You're searching for a job NOW? You're screwed." Rumors of massive cuts in personnel started coming down, along with ever more drastic projections of cuts.
It wasn't any better in industry. When I started to ask my contacts about job opportunities, what I heard back was simply horrifying. At MedImmune, a big immunology company near where I lived in Gaithersburg, one of their Scientist I positions got 1500 applications. Think about that a moment. 1500 highly qualified PhDs, some having been through 3-4 postdocs, many with previous industry experience, all fighting for a single entry level position.
1500.
Needless to say, after 10 months of searching, networking, and over a hundred resumes out, no interviews were forthcoming, not even to local companies.
I did make a good play for Food and Drug Administration training, their highly sought-after "Commissioner's Fellowship" which has full pay and benefits for 2 years. I made the final cut for a lab studying HIV vaccines, but I did not get the position. That was 1 in 5 odds, and mine wasn't the winning number.
Now massive layoffs have been announced within the NCI, due to the debt ceiling debacle and the almost certainty of more cuts. I won't be getting another postdoc in the government any time soon.
And so, I will be going on unemployment and moving in with my mother, at 40 years old, as so many are doing now. I expect to have six months of so of unemployment, since I figure the chances of Republicans renewing the unemployment program are about the same as me getting a job. And then, I'm on the graces of my friends, my family and my community. I had the misfortune, as so many others have, of ending my training in the worst scientific job market of any of our lifetimes. And I'm no longer at my peak -- after colitis and two surgeries, I average a sick day a month, especially during the extreme temperature months. I am too old, too crippled, to pay dues any more in this field. My scientific career is in ashes. Seems that, with all this education, skill, and experience, my society has judged me not worth keeping around. It was a hard blow to take.
But this isn't just about the pain of that realization. It is about the phoenix I hope to create from those ashes -- and the Kos community may even be able to help.
One of the things I've realized over the years is that I'm really good at explaining science to nonscientific laypeople. During the last year of my postdoc, I put that to the test doing volunteer docent work at the Koshland Science Museum, run by the National Academy of Sciences, in downtown DC. A tiny little museum of 3 exhibits, it is more a high-tech classroom then a museum, but it was an awesome place to work, and I was told I was among the best of their volunteers. But the museum field is just as job-locked as bioscience. What to do?
The Eureka moment came this February.
One of their exhibits concerned evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria, showing a simulated growth of culture. I thought to myself, "Why not make a card demonstration of this exhibit for school groups?". That quickly turned into an idea for a playable game, which I named Mutation, to teach kids how bacteria can evolve antibiotic resistance. With the help of a professional card artist and her game designer husband, I am developing it into a fully playable game, targeted to schools and museum gift shops. At worst, such a game will give my museum resume a very unusual, eye-catching entry. At best, it may give me a little income, perhaps enough to keep from starving out in six months. The amount of encouragement I've gotten about the game has been tremendous, but I know the odds.
And that, dear Kossacks, is where you come in. When the game (currently in alpha testing at the museum) is ready to publish, I'll need all the help I can get. Anyone have any suggestions or advice for the initial marketing...of beating the odds...I'm all ears.
I guess that in the end, I am really no different then so many others. In some ways, I am far luckier then some, even if it doesn't feel it. Perhaps my story will just be another statistic.
But thank you for reading it.