Factors That Influence Career Choice among Different Populations of Neuroscience Trainees

Abstract

Specific groups have historically been, and continue to be, underrepresented in the biomedical research workforce, especially academia. Career choice is a multifactorial process that evolves over time; among all trainees, expressed interest in faculty research careers decreases over time in graduate school, but that trend is amplified in women and members of historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups ( Golde and Dore, 2004 ; Fuhrmann et al., 2011 ; Sauermann and Roach, 2012 ; Gibbs et al., 2014 ; Roach and Sauermann, 2017 ). This work was designed to investigate how career interest changes over time among recent neuroscience PhD graduates, and whether differences in career interests are associated with social identity, experiences in graduate school and postdoctoral training, and personal characteristics. We report results from a survey of 1479 PhD neuroscientists (including 16% underrepresented scientists and 54% women scientists). We saw repeated evidence that individual preferences about careers in general, and academic careers specifically, predict current career interest. These findings were moderated by social identity and experiences in graduate school and postdoctoral training. Our findings highlight the important influence of the advisor in shaping a trainee’s career path, and the ways in which academic culture is perceived as unwelcoming or incongruent with the values or priorities of certain groups. They suggest several areas for positive growth, ways to change how we think about the impact of mentorship, and policy and programmatic interventions that extend beyond trying to change or “fix” the individual and instead recognize the systemic structures that influence career choices.

Barriers to and facilitators of success for early and Mid‐Career professionals focused on bipolar disorder: A global needs survey by the International Society for Bipolar Disorders

“…The EMCC Needs Assessment Workgroup met to identify domains relevant for EMCs. Based on an initial literature review, 18–25 in combination with expertise from individuals comprising the EMCC, eight domains were identified: navigating transitional career stages, creating and fostering mentorship, research activities, raising academic profile, clinical‐research balance, networking and collaboration, community engagement, and work‐life balance. The Needs Assessment Workgroup then developed a mixed‐methods survey including both qualitative (open free text responses) and quantitative (forced choice numeric responses) questions across domains.…”

“…The EMCC Needs Assessment Workgroup met to identify domains relevant for EMCs. Based on an initial literature review, [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] Through an iterative and collaborative process, final items were selected to balance survey length with the granularity of information to be collected. The goal was for the survey to take approximately 15 minutes.…”

The importance of promoting scientific advocacy & outreach for trainees

“…For women and members of historically-excluded racial and ethnic groups, lack of confidence and sense of belonging are drivers for leaving academic research [12]. Engaging in scientific outreach and advocacy is one way that these factors can be diminished because these activities provide trainees with a sense of community and the feedback that their work and expertise are valued by society [13].…”

Semiautomated process for generating knowledge graphs for marginalized community doctoral-recipients

“…Even when a rich profusion of research on graduate students can be found in the social science domain, there is comparatively little available on marginalized US graduate students. Most of the available research focuses on graduate students of color and females, and the major theme across research in at least the past three decades has been the role of advising in the retention and success of historically marginalized graduate students in the US (Blackwell, 1987; Abatso et al , 1987; Frierson, 1990; Willie, 1991; Terenzini, 1996; Brown et al , 1999; Brown, 2000; Gay, 2004; Golde and Dore, 2004; Girves et al , 2005; Thomas et al , 2007; Luna and Prieto, 2009; Pau, 2009; Fuhrmann et al , 2011; McGee et al , 2012; Sauermann and Roach, 2012; Gibbs et al , 2014; McCallum, 2017; Roach and Sauermann, 2017; Sevelius et al , 2020; and Ullrich et al , 2021). The research is even more sparse when looking at minority groups based on other factors such as functional limitations (Jain et al , 2020; Tamjeed et al , 2021), citizenship (Zhou, 2010) or age (Rose, 2005).…”