A 2 August letter from the National Science Foundation’s geosciences directorate asks grantees and grant applicants to spell out their postdoc mentoring activities in both grant proposals and annual and final reports.
Reposted from Science Magazine, 26 August 2005 Princeton University wants to level the field for tenure-track faculty members starting a family. Starting this fall, both men and women who become parents will receive an automatic tenure extension. This first-of-its kind policy is seen as one way to help boost the number of tenured women in science and engineering departments. But some say the poli...
The United States last week changed its visa rules to make it easier for foreign students and scientists working on sensitive technologies to reenter the country after overseas trips. The new policy, announced last week by the State Department, extends the validity of security clearances, now 1 year, to 4 years for international students and 2 years for foreign scientists. Until now, foreign scho...
Reposted with permission from Science News, 25 March 2005 For years, postdoctoral scholars have complained that they receive too little help in making the crucial transition from trainee to independent investigator. Last week a new report by the National Academies suggested shoring up that support in ways that might benefit the entire biomedical community. The report, from a panel chaired by Howa...
The number of international students beginning graduate studies at U.S. universities has declined for the third year in a row. But the 6% drop is the smallest in 3 years, an improvement that some attribute in part to faster handling of visa applications. The news, in a survey released last week by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS), comes as a relief to higher education organizations, which ha...
Reposted with permission from Science News, 8 April 2005 Careful tending of a young plant, every gardener knows, is more likely to yield a bountiful harvest. A new survey of 7600 postdocs shows that axiom also applies to the research lab. The survey, conducted by the scientific society Sigma Xi and released this week ( sigmaxi.org ), suggests that a well-structured environment for postdocs pays o...
Last week, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) rolled out three initiatives intended to smooth the transition to becoming an independent researcher. (Reposted from Science News)
Reposted with permission from Science News, 15 October 2004 The country's biggest private sponsor of biomedical research is joining hands with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in an unusual arrangement to train interdisciplinary scientists. Under the initiative, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) will provide up to $1 million over 3 years to each of 10 institutions to help them cre...
Reposted from Science Magazine, 22 July 2005 The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has proposed a rule that would make it harder for universities to involve foreign nationals in unclassified research projects funded by the agency. The additional security arrangements required by the rule are at odds with traditional practices, say university administrators. The result, they warn, will be fewer opp...
A popular federal scholarship program for low-income and disadvantaged undergraduates that was scheduled to end this year has won a reprieve, thanks to reforms in the process that allows foreign workers to hold high-tech U.S. jobs. The National Science Foundation (NSF) began the Computer Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Scholarships (CSEMS) program in 1999 after Congress imposed an applicati...
Reposted with permission from Science News, 18 March 2005 The number of foreign students applying for graduate studies in the United States has declined for the second year in a row, according to a survey released last week by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS). But after a 28% fall last year that was widely attributed to a tightening of U.S. visa policies, this year's drop of 5%--combined wit...
Reposted from Science magazine, 22 April 2005 An estimated 100,000 college graduates could save up to $10,000 each under proposed federal legislation to increase the number of U.S. citizens pursuing science and engineering careers. The bill, introduced last week in both the U.S. House and Senate, would forgive the interest on federal loans for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (ST...
As a rare woman faculty member at Stanford Medical School in the late 1970s, neurobiologist Carla Shatz put her quest for tenure ahead of her desire to start a family. But as she toiled away in the lab, working on a range of problems in developmental biology, her biological clock was ticking faster than she realized. By the time she earned tenure in her late 30s, her reproductive years had passed...
