Academic Job Chalk Talk Workshop I – 2021

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When: Friday 2/26 1-2 pm

Where: Zoom

Chalk Talk Presenter: Hanh Lam, UCSC Postdoc in METX

Description: We will briefly cover what is expected of academic tenure track job applicants in the interview chalk talk, and how this format is unique from the “job talk” seminar. Then, we will watch one UCSC postdoc who is currently on the job market deliver a practice chalk talk.

This is the first event in a series of chalk talk workshops featuring UCSC postdocs from different disciplines, and future events will have mock faculty search panels. For this last-minute event, we need the community’s feedback to help simulate a realistic chalk talk experience for Hanh, complete with interrupting and clarifying questions.

This event is part of a monthly virtual event series organized by the USPA. Each month, we host a workshop or seminar that either offers career development support or highlights some of the amazing research conducted by postdocs on campus. If you are interested in suggesting a workshop or presenting your research, please let us know at uspa@ucsc.edu.

USPA Monthly Virtual Event Series – Nature-inspired Modeling for Cosmology and Beyond

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Oskar Elek will be the speaker at this month’s virtual seminar. Oskar is a postdoc in the Computational Media Department and will be talking about his work on nature-inspired modeling for cosmology and beyond.

Date: Tuesday, January 26th at 1:00pm
Title: Polyphorm: Nature-inspired Modeling for Cosmology and Beyond

Summary from Oskar:
I will present my main research project called Polyphorm, which uses an algorithm inspired by the growth of Physarum polycephalum ‘slime mold’ to generate complex rhizomatic networks. Using this methodology, together with UCSC astronomers we have obtained accurate reconstructions of the Cosmic web. I will talk about these novel results, as well as the applications of the model to other domains and even for generating art.

Zoom information: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/93858109040?pwd=dE1YcTN3M21qYUlWL0R6aTgzRlRSdz09
Meeting ID: 938 5810 9040
Passcode: 825718

This event is part of the new virtual event series organized by the USPA. Each month, we will host a workshop or seminar that either offers career development support or highlights some amazing research conducted by postdocs on campus.
If you are interested in presenting, please sign up here: https://forms.gle/221yYehcRJ5HXYWb6

From Oskar Elek's homepage: https://cgg.mff.cuni.cz/~oskar/research.html#BurchettElek2020

Three-dimensional map of the underlying cosmic web’s intricate filamentary network from data containing the positions of 37,000 galaxies.

PostDoc Holiday Party 2020

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Since curtailment season is upon us (YAY!) but Santa Cruz is a purple COVID-zone (booo) the UCSC STEAM Postdoctoral Association cordially invites you to a virtual evening of holiday merriment! (but we promise, it’s NOT on Zoom!)

PLACE (sort of): https://spatial.chat/s/USPAHoliday
TIME: Monday, December 21st at 6 PM
$$ PRIZES: Best ‘Ugly’ Sweater, Cookie Decorating, Pet Costume
Please fill out this form to RSVP*

*You don’t have to RSVP to come, but you DO have to RSVP to get a free holiday goodie/food basket!

So come celebrate the winter holidays with other postdocs! Eat, drink, be merry, and let’s give ourselves a couple hours break from the ridiculousness that has been 2020!

holiday festivities 2020

[USPA Monthly Virtual Event Series] Industry Job Hunting: One Postdoc’s Personal Experiences and Tips

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The UCSC STEM Postdoc Association (USPA) welcomes you to the first installment of our new monthly event series – Industry Job Hunting: One Postdoc’s Personal Experiences and Tips.

Speaker: Jason Fernandes (former UCSC Postdoc and USPA Board Member, now at Scribe Therapeutics)
This Friday (12/4) at noon on Zoom

Description: Talk and Q&A workshop from one of UCSC’s postdocs who recently made the leap to industry. Jason will cover:
– Strategies he used to find and apply for jobs
– How he navigated the interview and offer processes

This event is the first in a new virtual event series organized by the USPA. Each month, we will host a workshop or seminar that either offers career development support or highlights some of the amazing research conducted by postdocs on campus. If you are interested in suggesting a workshop or presenting your research, please let us know at uspa@ucsc.edu.

Join the UCSC STEM Postdoc Association!

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Are you seeking a community at Santa Cruz or just looking to get more involved? Don’t wait until you “get that paper into Science” or “get that job offer’. The USPA can help with those things and more!

The UCSC STEM Postdoc Association (USPA) is UCSC’s grassroots postdoc association that was built by postdocs in 2015 to offer career development and community-building activities to the underserved postdoc community at UCSC. Over the past five years, we have built up a solid network of internal and external funding sources, which pay for our workshops, social events, and annual symposium. Our only limiting resource is postdocs like you!

While the USPA was originally built to serve the community outwardly, the association has had a large positive effect on its own members. Through accessing valuable institutional knowledge and networking opportunities, our postdoc representatives have been awarded prestigious fellowships and received competitive industry offers while serving on the board. Thus, although it may seem like volunteering for the USPA would limit your time for research, the outcome is in fact the opposite for most people.

If interested, please come to our next board meeting via Zoom at 3pm next Thursday, November 5th, 2020. We will be discussing plans for our socially-distanced upcoming year and we will be deciding roles for the next USPA board of representatives, which includes the following positions: Chair, Vice-Chair, Treasurer, Secretary, Symposium Co-chairs (2), and Social Event Coordinator.

Join us on Zoom

Quick survey about 2020-21 events

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A new academic year is upon us, but with COVID, things can’t exactly be “business as usual”. The UCSC STEM Postdoc Association (USPA), UCSC’s grassroots postdoc association, regularly hosts a range of workshops, social events, and symposia for our postdoc community. As not all of these events are equally amenable to virtual formats, we would appreciate your feedback about what events you would like to attend and/or participate in over the current academic year.

Please complete this quick 6-question survey to help us decide what events to offer virtually in the 2020-21 academic year.

Thanks for your input!

Distanced social outing to Natural Bridges

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The USPA invites you to a socially-distanced social outing Thursday October 15 afternoon-evening! We will be tide-pooling at Natural Bridges and then eating dinner at the park/on the beach.

To be there at low tide, we will arrive at the park at 3:30 pm (low tide is at 3:58). After an hour or so of exploring the tide pools, beach, and park, we will order dinner to eat at the beach (sunset is at 6:31).

If you are interested in joining us, please fill out this form. We’ll be meeting at the entrance to the park on West Cliff and Swanton Blvd.

If you need to drive and park, there is free street parking along Swanton Blvd (at least the east side of the street; the left has been opening and closing randomly).

Support USPA for Giving Day 2020!

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Wednesday Sept 30th is Giving Day! Help us fund the annual UCSC STEM Postdoc Association (USPA) Symposium! See our Giving Day page.Support USPA for Giving Day 2020 Your donation will help immensely to further the strengths and reputation of the Santa Cruz STEM research community by enabling the USPA to continue offering our annual symposium.

Social Hour for Postdoc Appreciation Week 2020

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We are organizing a small virtual gathering on Friday Sept 25 at 4pm to chat, socialize and meet new postdocs.

Join us at: https://ucsc.zoom.us/j/96171940570?pwd=bmg1MGZ3bWh3dWMrelVyM2JOQ04rUT09
(Passcode: 249241)

If we feel playful (or competitive!) we’ll make a team and join the Games & Trivia event organized by the National Postdoc Association at 4:45pm.

There are a lot of events organized by the NPA for the next three days, check out their event list.

postdoc-appreciation-phdcomics

USPA Workshop on Faculty Job Market Survey

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When: Fri July 24, 12:00 pm
Where: Zoom https://ucsc.zoom.us/my/jferna10
PLEASE REGISTER here: https://forms.gle/8ehPEkgnNXRkHvKE6

We will be holding a Zoom seminar on “A survey-based analysis of the academic job market“, a collaborative effort between Jason and postdocs at other institutions from around the country that was just published in eLife. This paper is likely of interest to students, postdocs and staff considering faculty career paths, as well as faculty interested in faculty hiring practices (please note most of our data is related to the life-sciences). We hope to have members of the audience share their thoughts, experiences and feedback during this informal presentation.

Abstract: Many postdoctoral researchers apply for faculty positions knowing relatively little about the hiring process or what is needed to secure a job offer. To address this lack of knowledge about the hiring process we conducted a survey of applicants for faculty positions: the survey ran between May 2018 and May 2019, and received 317 responses. We analyzed the responses to explore the interplay between various scholarly metrics and hiring outcomes. We concluded that, above a certain threshold, the benchmarks traditionally used to measure research success – including funding, number of publications or journals published in – were unable to completely differentiate applicants with and without job offers. Respondents also reported that the hiring process was unnecessarily stressful, time-consuming, and lacking in feedback, irrespective of outcome. Our findings suggest that there is considerable scope to improve the transparency of the hiring process.