Skip to content
CIRGE

Author: admin

Renate Sadrozinski

Renate Sadrozinski, PhD, is a Senior Research Scientist who has undertaken cross-cultural research in graduate/doctoral education for CIRGE. She received her PhD at the University of Bremen, Germany in sociology. In Germany Dr. Sadrozinski was the director of research of the Equal Opportunity Office of the state of Hamburg. She has published several books and many articles and reports in the areas of women and careers in the public service, battered women, immigrant women, and women’s health. She has been working with the European University Institute to customize the CIRGE survey for their use and for later comparison of their results with CIRGE survey results. She directed the PhDs in Art History – Over a Decade Later study and had worked on the PhDs—Ten Years Later project.

Degree Completion in Doctoral Education

One of the main concerns for graduate schools is the attrition and completion of doctoral students. CIRGE has carried out diverse studies to analyze the patterns that intervene in the doctoral completion.

Review here the main studies

Doctoral Education at the University of California and Factors Affecting Time-to-Degree

This study examined time-to-degree at the University of California in order to determine if students took longer on average to complete their doctoral degrees than they did 20 years ago. It presents factors which may have led to long time-to-degree, addresses underlying structural reasons for prolonged time-to-degree among all students and examines whether or not these factors influence ethnic minorities and women in particular

Nerad, M. “Doctoral Education at the University of California and Factors Affecting Time-to-Degree.” In response to the California State Senate (SRC 66). Report to the Office of the President. Oakland, CA. June 1991.

Download: Introduction and Parts I to VII – Bibliography, Tables and Appendices

Feasibility of International Comparisons of PhD Program Time-to-Degree and Completion Rates

In attempting to compare doctoral times-to-completion and completion rates for institutions in different countries, it was found that issues of definitions and data availability are major stumbling blocks.  National and institutional contexts also complicate matters.  Because of these complications, comparisons are difficult to make, but it might be possible to account for these confounding issues to gain some insights from such comparisons.

Hall, F., Evans, B. and Nerad, M.  2006 Feasibility of International Comparisons of PhD Program Time-to-Degree and Completion Rates.  Unpublished article.

Download:  Feasibility of International Comparisons

 

Postdoctoral Education

Many stories have been told about postdoctoral fellows prolonging their stays in temporary positions in order to assemble that last publication thought to be necessary to compete for a faculty position. Also, popular in recent years have been stories of disappointed post-docs who were unable to find permanent academic  research jobs. Despite these stories, no recent comprehensive study on postdoctoral appointees and  their experiences is available, given that the last national post-doc survey was published nearly 20 years ago.

Rectifying this situation was one of the goals of the Ph.D.s—Ten Years Later study, which collected data on the career paths of doctoral recipients in biochemistry, computer science, electrical engineering, English, mathematics, and political science including the role of postdoctoral appointments.

Addressing matters related to the educational and training environment of post-docs is a task complicated by the fact that few universities have a central authority overseeing conditions of postdoctoral appointments, such as duration, salary structure, benefits, and placement services. Although in recent years a number of universities paid more attention to post-docs, still few can provide a truly accurate count of the number of postdoctoral fellows on campus. These deficiencies exist due to the lack of a consistent definition among hiring units of what constitutes a post-doc, and because post-docs are compensated and/or recorded in several different ways—some are paid as university employees; some are paid through an entirely separate stipend account; and others are paid directly by foundations and foreign governments.

Download: Complete Report

Other publications related

Nerad, M & Cerny, J. (2002). Postdoctoral Appointments and Employment: Patterns of Science and Engineering Doctoral Recipients Ten-plus Years after Ph.D. Completion, Communicator, VXXXV (7), August-September 2002.  Download:  Postdoctoral-appointments

Nerad, M. & Cerny, J. (1999). Postdoctoral Patterns, Career Advancement, and Problems. Science, Vol. 285, pp. 1533-1535.  Download:  Postdoctoral Patterns

IGERT Astrobiology program at UW

Graduate students Megan Smith and Elena Amador sample waters from the highly acidic Rio Tinto in Spain looking for an analog to early Martian environment (Source: UWAB)

Astrobiology studies the origin of life on Earth and the distribution of life in the Universe. The cross-disciplinary nature of this field mandates collaboration among biologists, astronomers, oceanographers, atmospheric scientists, chemists, planetary scientists, and geologists.

Based on the Seattle campus of the University of Washington, the UW Astrobiology (UWAB) Program supports an interdisciplinary community of twenty-five core faculty members, eight postdocs and research scientists, and nearly thirty graduate students –who span eight astrobiology-affiliated graduate programs in four different colleges.

As part of our multi-year evaluation of the Astrobiology IGERT, CIRGE administered two web-based surveys to students in the program. The results are intended to provide anonymous student feedback to the program faculty and to increase understandings of interdisciplinary graduate programs and student experiences. Additionally, two focus groups were held with Astrobiology graduate students in order to gain more specific feedback on the program. The findings from these activities were summarized and presented to the Astrobiology department in summer of 2007.  Another survey of students and interviews of faculty and chairs was reported on in 2009.

See Report Student Survey (2006)

See Report Post IGERT Career Outcomes: Astrobiology at University of Washington (2010)

US IGERT

IGERT is the National Science Foundation’s flagship interdisciplinary training program, educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers by building on the foundations of their disciplinary knowledge with interdisciplinary training. From 1998 until now, the IGERT program has acquired 278 awards and has provided funding for approximately 6,500 graduate students.

The IGERT programs offer traineeships to students pursuing their PhDs. The interdisciplinary graduate programs represented vary greatly, spanning disciplines that include: biomedical engineering, environmental economics, nanoscience, sustainability, computational science, molecular biology, psychology, anthropology, political science, materials science, and many more. Opportunities for international experience as well as internships in industry and government are a part of many programs. 

Why IGERT?

Collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries and requires teamwork provides students with the tools to become leaders in the science and engineering of the future. Diversity among the students contributes to their preparation to solve large and complex research problems of significant scientific and societal importance at the national and international level.

See more about IGERT projects

Academic Career

Respondents give high marks to their history programs for “academic rigor,” and training in “critical thinking” and “data analysis and synthesis.” They also identified areas to target for improvement, including training in writing and publishing reports and articles and in how to teach, as well as providing concrete feedback to students on their progress, socializing students into the academic community and having a diverse student population. Surveyed historians urged programs to address the fact that the academic labor market cannot absorb all the doctorate holders, to be aware of opportunities for historians outside academia, and to recognize the value to society of historians working in diverse employment sectors. Even knowing what they know now about the history job market, more then 80% of respondents would get a PhD in history again.

Download: So you want to become a professor

Nerad, M., Aanerud, R. and Cerny, J. 2004. “So You Want to Become a Professor! Lessons from the PhDs—Ten Years Later Study,” in Paths to the Professoriate: Strategies for Enriching the Preparation of Future Faculty. eds. Donald H. Wulff, Ann Austin, and Associates. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

International PhDs who received their Degrees in the USA

The core debate over Ph.D. recipients from abroad who earned their degrees at U.S. institutions of higher education centers around the questions: who (and how many) stayed in the United States, and who (and how many) returned home? To explore these questions, Deepak, Nerad and Cerny undertook an in-depth study  within  “PhDs – 10 Years Later” survey.

Maresi Nerad and Joseph Cerny were the principal investigators for this study, which was funded by the Mellon Foundation and the National Science Foundation. The national survey examined the career paths of nearly 6,000 Ph.D. recipients who completed their doctoral degrees in the United States between 1982 and 1985 in six fields of study (biochemistry, computer science, electrical engineering, English, mathematics, and political science).

While, overall, 40 percent of the Ph.D.s from abroad returned home to start their post-Ph.D. careers, there was, in fact, considerable variation by field of study, region of origin, and even subregion. Exit rates were the highest for those with Ph.D.s in English and political science, with between one-half to two-thirds leaving the United States. The rates were lowest for technological fields (computer science and electrical engineering), fields in which international Ph.D.s are concentrated, with only around a quarter leaving the United States for their first jobs.

There was extensive variation among those who left, depending on geographic region of origin. Those from Africa, Central and Latin America, Canada, and Australia were the most likely to return home for their first jobs, with almost two-thirds making this choice. In contrast, only around a third of the East Asians and Europeans chose to return home for their first jobs. Finally, South Asians were the least likely to return home, with less than one-tenth leaving the United States.

Gupta, D., Nerad, M., and Cerny, J. (2003).  The Road Home: Exploring the Choice to Stay or Return of International PhDs, International Higher Education, Spring. Download:  International PhDs