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Circumstance and Choice

Apr 12, 2012

At American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Today, Baylor College of Medicine's Lynn Zechiedrich says it's high time that the scientific community "acknowledge and reward the burgeoning class of highly skilled, underpaid, and highly stressed workhorses in our nation's research laboratories." As Zechiedrich puts it:

They are not often the first or last authors on publications. They are not usually the ones traveling to meetings to present their work. They do not often get to interact with the public or the press. Their jobs are tenuous, and their titles rarely reflect their talent, intellect, or hard work. In the US, they are known variously as instructors, non-tenure-track faculty, postdoctoral fellows, research faculty, senior technicians, or staff scientists.

Whether because of circumstance or by choice, Zechiedrich says that "a lot of great talent is accumulating in the middle ranks of institutions. Both those who have become stuck and those who have purposefully chosen not to move on bring much good to our nation's laboratories and institutions."

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