By Rick Vacek | May 27, 2025
The push to support postdoctoral scholars continues to expand at The University of Texas at Dallas, and a trip to the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) Annual Conference in Boston added even more to the postdoc perspective.
For the first time, two members of the UT Dallas Postdoctoral Association (UTDPDA) leadership team joined Dr. Francesca Filbey, Senior Associate Provost for Faculty Success, at the largest gathering dedicated to the postdoc community – community being the operative word.
“The conference showed how to build a postdoc community,” said Dr. Jessica Kraft, who in January was named President/Director of Internal Affairs of the UTDPDA. (Dr. Marco Pipoly is the new President/Director of External Affairs.)
“It was one of my favorite conferences because of the in-person workshops. I really appreciated those workshops because they were tailored to wherever you are in your postdoc career but also where your postdoc association is in its development.”
The other UTDPDA attendee was its treasurer, Dr. Christopher Brewer. Like Kraft, he returned home armed with ideas for seminars and social events designed to excite postdocs about learning more about what UT Dallas offers them and meeting more of their peers.
“Getting postdocs to respond, it’s tough,” Brewer said. “Postdocs are busy. They’re pulled in many directions. There’s a high expectation for them to produce a lot and quickly.
“So a lot of them will see an hour for an event as, ‘I’ve got an experiment running, I’ve got a couple other things to do. All that does is mean I can’t do the work today or I’ve got to stay later.’
“It really helped to see how other postdoc associations engage their people.”
That engagement can turn a community of strangers into close-knit colleagues.
Dr. Ovidio Rodriguez Lopez is the perfect example of what postdoc support can do.
Even though he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from UT Dallas, life as a postdoc is far different from life as a graduate student.
“The only input I had was some international postdocs I knew or some co-workers, but it was nothing essential,” he said. “They couldn’t answer all my questions.”
An opportunity for a group meeting with Dr. Inga H. Musselman, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, started the question-answering process, and that led him to the UTDPDA.
Now he is the organization’s Administrative Coordinator.
“We are moving forward faster – twice the pace,” he said.
The pace also was quickened by having a table in a high-traffic area of the national convention, which typically attracts postdocs looking for work in addition to business and other academic representatives.
“A lot of people stopped by our table and asked a lot of questions,” said Filbey, who provided them with a QR link to the UT Dallas job portal. “We wanted to show we have opportunities that might not be available elsewhere.”
One of the workshops addressed the recruiting issue, but Brewer’s experience in Boston also demonstrated why building a postdoc program requires so much patience.
He is accustomed to seeing old professors and colleagues at chemistry conferences, but for most people the postdoc experience is for only two or three years. The Boston convention enabled him to meet postdocs outside North Carolina State University, where he worked as a postdoc before coming to UT Dallas.
“There’s a little bit of a barrier to getting to know folks the first time you’re there because it’s a really broad mixture,” he said. “Everyone there is in their position for a temporary period.”
The temporary nature of postdoc life is its biggest challenge.
“Once you build it, if you can maintain it, it will maintain itself. It’s a multiyear project.”
DR. CHRISTOPHER BREWER
“It’s a little different than the graduate student experience,” Brewer said. “When you come in as a graduate student, you meet your advisor and it’s a long-term commitment. You’re going to be here for five to six years, you get to know each other, you slowly build this relationship, and your advisor builds you to being productive.
“The postdoc comes in as a trained individual, and sometimes you’ve met this advisor for the first time. It’s not the same buildup of the relationship you get as a graduate student, so sometimes there are different types of conflict that arise.”
Distance also is an issue. UT Dallas isn’t the only institution where research is conducted in locations away from the main campus, and the national conference included many workshops that suggested ways to bring postdocs together. For example, the first Friday of the month could feature coffee and doughnuts.
The UTDPDA leadership team has one goal for the monthly seminar it conducts during the academic year: building community.
“Once you build it,” Brewer said, “if you can maintain it, it will maintain itself. It’s a multiyear project.”