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Postdoctoral Studies

Information for postdoctoral applicants.

Postdoctoral training is one of the cornerstones of our scientific endeavors at Carnegie DPB.  Ourpostdoctoral researchers come from all over the world and have already distinguished themselves through their graduate work.  Postdoctoral training at Carnegie is possible in a wide variety of areas.  The small size of the Department of Plant Biology and a longstanding culture of sharing resources make for a highly interactive environment.  Postdoctoral researchers typically get to know several staff members well during their tenure at Carnegie. This encourages exchange of ideas across research areas.  The resulting synergy is exciting and leads to novel insights and productive research collaborations.  Our location on the Stanford campus provides incredible opportunities for interactions with faculty in a wide range of disciplines and a wealth of research seminars to choose from each week.  

Below are some features of our postdoctoral training program:

Plant Biology Seminar Series
This weekly series meets Fridays at 4 PM.  Expert speakers present their research in areas pertinent to plant biology.  Half of the speakers are local and the other half are from outside institutions.  An informal reception is held after the seminar to allow scientists at all levels to interact with the speaker.  This seminar series is funded by the Carnegie Institution’s endowment.

Roundtable seminar (See schedule at the bottom of the page)
This seminar series meets every other week and is a forum for Carnegie postdocs and graduate students to present their work. 

Shared mentorship
In some cases, postdoctoral scientists are mentored by more than one staff member.  This is especially useful if the project requires more than one area of expertise.  Postdoctoral researchers are encouraged to think about ways that new technologies or expertise can be used to advance their research

Ethics training
The staff members at DBP hope that we model and convey high ethical standards to the scientists we train.  In addition, some organizations that award postdoctoral fellowships (e.g. NIH) require that recipients receive ethics training.  Stanford University offers a course that some Carnegie postdocs have taken advantage of called “Responsible Conduct of Research” (Link is http://bioethics.stanford.edu/education/rcr/coursereadings.html)

Applying

Graduate students interested in carrying out postdoctoral research at Carnegie DPB should contact the appropriate staff member(s) directly.  A lead time of about one year before you plan to graduate is helpful as this allows time to apply for outside fellowships (see below).  Shorter lead times may be possible depending on individual labs’ resources. 

Funding

Postdoctoral research may be funded by grants to Carnegie DPB staff members.  However, many postdocs have successfully competed for their own funding.  Here are a few organizations that fund postdoctoral fellowships:  

Some former Carnegie DPB postdocs: