National Postdoctoral Appreciation Week (#NPAW2025) Fall Symposium!!
Registration for ALL #NPAW2025 events IS NOW OPEN!!!
Congratulations to the 10 Finalists for the 5-Minute Research Presentation:
| Postdoctoral Speaker | Title of Presentation | Department |
|---|---|---|
| Yu-Jou Chou | Plastic in Our Plates, Plastic in Our Body? | Health, Nutrition, and Food Science |
| Evan Lloyd | How Evolution Shapes the Brain | Department of Biological Science & Neuroscience |
| Ahirudh Lakshmi Narasimha Prasad | Taming Jet Roars with Tiny Lightning Zap | Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering |
| Sagiv Shiber | Exploding Stars: The Role of Magnetic Fields | Department of Physics |
| Ashley Allen Carr | Living Glass in Space | Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering |
| Buna Bhandari | Isolation within Isolation: Unmasking COVID-19 Stigma | College of Nursing |
| Jijong Yang | Genes, Health, and Heritage: How DNA and Ancestry Shape Our Metabolic Profiles | College of Nursing |
| Saptarsi Mitra | From Smell to Appetite: Linking Odors with Feeding Circuits | Department of Biological Science & Neuroscience |
| Behrouz Ghazi Esfahani | Seeing is Curing: Cryo-EM in the Fight Against Respiratory Pathogens | Department of Biomedical Sciences, College Medicine |
| Shekhar Chauhan | Memory and Math Across the Nations | College of Social Sciences and Public Policy |
NATIONAL Postdoctoral Appreciation Week (#NPAW2025) EVENT SCHEDULE =
Mentor/Mentee Coffee, Tea, and Pastry
Wednesday, September 17, 2025 - 9:00 to 11:00 am - KING Life Science Terrace Garden Rooftop = Postdocs and their advisors/mentors are invited for a coffee, tea, and pastry breakfast to be held mid-week on the top of the third-floor roof/terrace garden in the King Life Sciences Building/Biological Science. Come out and relax with fellow postdocs and advisors to start your day on Weds! We appreciate the special team that you foster!
POSTDOCTORAL POSTER SESSION
Friday, September 19, 2025 - 1:30 to 3 pm - College of Medicine Atrium = Postdocs come on out and share your research focus through poster presentation in the afternoon. No need to make a new poster, but feel free to make second use of a recent poster from a conference, and explain it to your colleagues in another discipline! Poster participants must by postdoctoral scholars and upload an abstract of their work by Thursday, September 12th to be included in the Fall Symposium Booklet. There will be a People's Choice voting for best presenter that will occur at 3 pm at the end of the session for a $500 award to highlight the postdoc with the best talent for explaining the discipline of their research to a fellow scholar. Come on out and share your research!
5-MINUTE RESEARCH COMPETITION (5-MR)
Friday, September 19, 2025 - 3:30 to 5:15 pm - College of Medicine Auditorium = Ten finalists will present their research in a creative oral competition in which there is only ONE rule! - not longer than 5 minutes!!! Presenters will be scored by a panel of notable judges in our FSU and Tallahassee Community. Ever wonder why there is resistance to COVID vaccines? How electrons dance? How particles make up all matter? Why older care kinship givers need extra care? Ever consider how your brain detects tastes when you eat or how lots of fat/sugar can lead to diabetes? Come and find out - support your postdoctoral researchers in this endeavor as they explain their research results in a public audience. Postdocs, graduate scholars, undergraduate students, faculty, and staff are all invited to attend the 5MR competition! There will be a People's Choice voting for best oral presentation that will occur at 5:15 pm at the end of the 5MR competition.
Please see here for judges rubric/scoring sheet that are used in the 5MR competition
You may also view videos from the 2024 competition on YouTube by following this link and selecting the previous presenter's name.
POSTDOCTORAL AWARDS RECEPTION SPONSORED BY PRESIDENT MCCULLOUGH
Friday, September 19, 2025 - 5:30 to 7 pm - College of Medicine Atrium and Courtyard = There will be an awards ceremony, announcing annual awards for travel grants, Fulbright recipients, UROP Postdoctoral Mentor Award, and of course winners of the Poster session and the 5MR competition. Special thank you to President McCullough for hosting the reception for the postdoctoral scholars and the research community.
Biology Department Workshop/Lunch Talks
Dear Postdocs and Grad Students,
Every fall, we host Workshop/Lunch talks on the academic job search featuring new faculty from at least 2 of the areas in the Bio Dept.
The fall academic job talks coincide with the fall postings of academic job ads (*see below). The late fall/spring talks are about opportunities in non-academic jobs.
For our Sept and Oct talks, we are very pleased to have Dr. Guangxia Miao (Sept. 15, 12pm Bio Unit I, Rm 320) talking about the academic job search from the Cell and Molecular Bio perspective and Dr. Kayla Stoy (Oct. 13, 12pm Bio Unit I, Rm 320) from the Ecology and Evolution perspective.
Dr. Guangxia Miao
Cell and Molecular Biology
Dr. Kayla Stoy
Ecology & Evolution
Even though this is an uncertain time, Life Sciences job ads are being posted. We encourage you to register for ScienceCareers job alerts even if you are not yet ready to look for a job.
https://jobs.sciencecareers.org/jobs/life-sciences/north-america/
If you would like to register for the Bio/Neuro Postdoc Canvas Site. It is open to Graduate Students as well. Just send an email with your FSU 'username' to kmjones@bio.fsu.edu and an invite will be sent to you through Canvas.
Parental Leave Survey - We want your input!
The PDA and OPDA invite faculty and postdocs to follow a survey
FACULTY SURVEY - HERE
POSTDOC SURVEY - HERE
A literature review conducted in 2017 found that paid parental leave was associated with improved infant and maternal health outcomes (Heymann et al., 2017). In 2018, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 17% of all civilian workers had access to paid family leave, and 89% had access to unpaid family leave (including maternity and paternity leave, adoption leave and caring for a sick relative) (Statistics, 2019). Under federal law, postdoc fathers and/or mothers who have worked at FSU for at least 12 months have the right to 12 weeks of unpaid leave in accordance with the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Currently, tenure-track faculty at FSU have access to 16 weeks of paid parental leave. However, there is currently no paid parental leave policy in place for FSU postdocs.
We are interested in learning more about the thoughts and opinions of faculty members regarding a proposal for paid parental leave for postdocs. Please answer several questions to allow us to better understand the opinions of faculty. Your answers will help us in formulating a proposal for postdoctoral parental leave tailored to the needs of our institution. We will share the results of the survey with the Postdoc Advisory Board that governs postdoctoral scholars at FSU.
Please note that this survey is anonymous and you will not be able to be identified.
This survey should take approximately 5 minutes of your time.
Thank you!
Shannon Montgomery, PDA President
References
Heymann, J. et al. (2017) ‘Paid parental leave and family wellbeing in the sustainable development era’, Public Health Reviews, 38(1), p. 21. doi: 10.1186/s40985-017-0067-2.
Statistics, U. S. B. of L. (2019) Access to paid and unpaid family leave in 2018. Available at: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2019/access-to-paid-and-unpaid-family-leave-in-2018.htm (Accessed: 24 March 2021).