Welcome to the UC Santa Cruz Postdocs Association webpage!

The USPA is a postdoctoral-led organization that aims to provide career training and resources to postdoctoral scholars here at UC Santa Cruz. Each year the USPA organizes a symposium, and a series of workshops to highlight postdoctoral research, provides postdocs with career planning support, and build a stronger postdoc community.  Our goal is to create a welcoming environment for new postdocs and a supportive group of peers to navigate this pivotal career stage together.

The USPA is part of the larger network of Bay Area Postdocs.

Activities of USPA include:

  • postdoc science and social hour
  • career development workshops
  • annual symposium

Check out our upcoming events and:

Latest from USPA

Peer Review Workshop 11/7: 12 pm in Biomed 200

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The UCSC STEM Postdocs Association (USPA) is holding an event sponsored by the open access journals Bio-protocol and eLife on 11/7, 12 pm in Biomed 200.
 
Both journals have opportunities for early career researchers (e.g. postdocs) to serve as a reviewer. We also encourage PIs to attend and share their thoughts on peer review and learn about the publishing process at these journals.
Bio-protocol is a journal dedicated to making methods easily reproducible.  The journal publishes methods that are novel or serious improvements to the methods that are commonly used. Opportunities exist for senior graduate students and postdocs to review papers in conjunction with editors. Dennis Bua, the Director of Communications at Bio-protocol, will speak about how early career researchers can get involved.
eLife is a broad interest, open access, non-profit journal founded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society and the Wellcome Trust, and led by scientists. eLife is determined to improve the publishing process and has pioneered new models of open peer review (e.g. reviews are published with the article). eLife has recently launched an early career peer review program for postdocs to participate with senior scientists in eLife’s joint review process. Jordan Ward, an Assistant Professor in the MCDB department, and an eLife Ambassador and eLife Reviewer, will talk about eLife’s peer review process.
Why learn about peer review?
-Learning about the process and seeing how paper’s are evaluated can help you figure out the best way to present your own work and get it published.
-Reviewing in your own name at journals can help establish credentials for various documents and career advancement opportunities (e.g. EB-1A greencards).

-Serving as a reviewer helps everyone get quicker decisions on their manuscripts.  Hopefully someone will repay the favor so that your papers won’t sit on an editor’s desk for months!
Registration encouraged via the following link:
https://goo.gl/forms/cbcqP1KT2n67WtqW2

Preparing for your academic job interview chalk talk

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The UCSC STEM Postdoc Association (USPA) is organizing the workshop “Preparing for your academic job interview chalk talk“.
Update: *This event WILL be held regardless of the strike situation on campus.*
The chalk–talk is an essential part of an academic job interview. At this workshop, you will learn how to prepare your talk and what to expect from the interviewers, and two postdocs will have the chance to practice their talks and receive valuable feedback from experienced faculty.
When: October 24th 9:30am-1pm
Where: Biomed 200
This workshop will be structured in 2-parts:
– Q&A with a faculty panel regarding how to prepare your chalk talk (1 hr)
– Two UCSC postdocs will present practice/mock chalk talks to the faculty panel for feedback similar to a real job interview (2 hrs)

Our faculty panel of instructors includes:

    Russ Corbett-Detig, Assistant Professor, BME
    Carrie Partch, Associate Professor, Chemistry
    Susan Carpenter, Assistant Professor, MCD

    Jordan Ward, Assistant Professor, MCD
Please register here or email us at uspa@ucsc.edu if you have any questions.

Postdoctoral Benefits Open Enrollment Session

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11/6/2018, 12:00 PM – 300 Biomedical Sciences

The 2019 health benefits open enrollment period will run from October 25-November 20, 2018. This is the period during which you can make changes to enrollment and plan choices for medical, dental and vision plans. If you are already enrolled and do not wish to make any changes, no action is required. For any questions about open enrollment or benefits in general, contact the postdoc union at uaw5810@uaw5810.org or 510-845-5726.

Plan Options and Costs
There are two medical plan options (HMO and PPO) and two dental plan options (HMO and POS), see here for details about the plans and here for the plan costs. To view your current benefit choices and make changes during the open enrollment period, click here.

New for 2019: Enrolling Domestic Partners
In response to requests from our union and other UC employees, UC has changed its eligibility rules so that all UC employees are able to enroll a domestic partner and their partner’s eligible dependents upon meeting certain criteria. See here for more details and email the union if you have any questions.

PATH TO A STEM JOB IN INDUSTRY 

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PATH TO A STEM JOB IN INDUSTRY 

PATH TO A STEM JOB IN INDUSTRY 

Postdocs, grad students and staff scientists are all welcome!

DATE: Nov 5th (Monday) 

TIME: 11:00 AM. 

LOCATION: E2 - 180

 

REGISTER HERE

Slone Partners, a Life Sciences Hiring Agency, has been collaborating with the USPA to offer all of you STEM scientists an informative session about how you can successfully make the transition from academia into industry. 

TENTATIVE AGENDA:

10:45 am Check in

11:00am - 12:30pm Slone Partners, TwoPore Guys, and other companies will present important concepts for how you can move into STEM industry. We will have insights from HR as well as personal stories from PhDs who have made the switch themselves. 

12:30pm-1:30pm Professional photography session to take head shots for use in professional profiles(This will be offered to earlier registrants, postdocs will receive priority, and registration and confirmation are required to redeem this) 

When registering, please take this opportunity to let us know what questions you would like answered during the event. 

Please Join us! 

Feel free to contact us at uspa@ucsc.edu if you have any questions!