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

Postdoctoral Benefits Open Enrollment Session

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 

PATH TO A STEM JOB IN INDUSTRY 

PATH TO A STEM JOB IN INDUSTRY 

Postdocs, grad students and staff scientists are all welcome!

DATENov 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!

2018 Academic Job Search Q&A

The USPA hosted an Academic Job Search Workshop featuring an open Q&A from four faculty mentors.  Postdocs from a variety of fields got to learn about how an academic job search works from both sides (from the department's point of view and the candidates).  Stay tuned for future workshops on other aspects of the Academic Job Search such as the "Chalk Talk".

 Preparing for your Academic Job Search

 “Preparing for your Academic Job Search”

WHEN

SEPTEMBER 19 (WED)  12:30-1:30 PM

WHERE

PSB240

Please register here or email us at uspa@ucsc.edu if you have any questions.

In this Q & A workshop, we will cover many aspects of a faculty  job search including:

•How does a search committee get formed?
•What goes into a faculty job packet? 
•What are important criteria used to choose applicants?
 
Our instructors include:

Susan Strome

Distinguished Professor of MCD Biology

Needhi Bhalla

Associate Professor of MCD Biology

Susan Carpenter

Assistant Professor of MCD Biology

Daniel Kim

Assistant Professor of Biomolecular Engineering