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Postdocs Across the Pond

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By Chris Woolston

With her bachelor's degree from Princeton University, a Ph.D. from Duke University, and a better-than-passing familiarity with the yeast genome, Amy Gladfelter probably could have written her own ticket. She could have landed a postdoctoral position in a top researcher's laboratory in Boston or Palo Alto or somewhere in between. But in a move that baffled her mentors and colleagues alike, she chose Switzerland, instead.

Gladfelter, originally from Florida, has spent the last four years working as a postdoc at the University of Basel. She knows that leaving the U.S. academic sector was a risky move. She could have become bogged down in language barriers or cultural differences. She could have struggled for resources. Worse, she could have fallen off the radar screen of researchers in the States.

"Everyone told me not to do it, except for one mentor who had gone abroad," she says. "You could do this and have a real dead-end experience. It's risky. But getting a postdoc is a risky proposition no matter where you are. If you're in a famous guy's lab, you're there with 15 other postdocs. Who's going to get the job?"

As it turns out, the move to Switzerland didn't exactly kill her academic career. Language was never a problem (all of the researchers at Basel speak English), she had plenty of resources, and she certainly wasn't forgotten. Gladfelter starts her new job this fall: a faculty position at Dartmouth College.

Worth the Trip?

The Ivy League was willing to take a chance on this "European" postdoc. But are you willing to take a chance on Europe?

At a time when many of the brightest young scientists in Germany or England or France come to the United States for postdocs, not many Americans head in the opposite direction. A survey in 2000 found that fewer than 3 percent of Americans earning Ph.D.'s in the sciences went overseas for additional training. In one telling scene, very few Americans showed up at a recent New York Academy of Sciences symposium on research opportunities in Europe. As the academy's president, Ellis Rubinstein, noted, the sparse crowd was made up almost entirely of Europeans looking for a chance to go home.

But if you can work out the logistics -- from getting grant money to finding a flat -- Europe really does offer plenty of opportunities. Whether you study yeast genes or subatomic particles or nitrogen cycles, there's probably a lab in Europe doing excellent work in your field.

Americans who take a postdoc position across the ocean have to watch for pitfalls, but they often end up enjoying the journey.

When Sigrid Reinsch considered a postdoc in Germany, she saw an exciting research position for herself and an adventure for her husband and two children. After earning a Ph.D. in cell biology from the University of California at San Francisco, Reinsch spent six years at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg.

The lab is a high-powered research center, but it wasn't exactly the perfect stepping stone toward a job in the United States.

"I had a hard time," Reinsch says. "I sent out a million applications until I found a place where I can run a lab." In her case, simple logistics got in the way of potential job offers. "If you want a traditional faculty position, schools are not going to pay to fly you [from Europe] for an interview unless you're a real hotshot," Reinsch says.

Now a staff scientist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Ames Research Center in California, Reinsch urges caution for anyone interested in conducting research abroad. Then again, she says, it's undoubtedly easier to stay connected today than it was for her in the early and mid-1990s. "I barely even had e-mail then," she says.

Dollars and Pounds

Joshua Milstein, an American physicist living in England, hopes he won't have much trouble making the transition back to the States. After earning his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder, Milstein was eager to see more of the world. He started looking for grant possibilities and managed to win a Royal Society USA research fellowship at the University of Oxford.

The position certainly sounds prestigious, and Milstein hopes it will stand out on his CV. On the downside, it isn't exactly lucrative. Milstein may be an expert in quantum mechanics, but he failed to make a basic calculation in economics.

"I looked up the conversion rate and saw that a pound was worth about two dollars," he says. "It seemed like I was getting a good salary." But when he arrived in Britain, he discovered that everything was twice as expensive as he had expected. In terms of buying power, he ended up making about half as much as he would have in the United States.

He hates to think about where he would be without the help of his fellowship. "If you just came out here and got hired by a university, your pay would be abysmal," he says. "As a lecturer, your pay would be so low you'd have to live in graduate housing."

The financial outlook may be better in Continental Europe. Gladfelter says postdocs in Switzerland earn about as much as new assistant professors in the United States.

Then again, Basel is an expensive place to live. And because she didn't want to disappear from the American science scene, she faced the extra cost of frequent trips overseas. Fortunately, her institution paid her way to meetings in the States.

"I traveled to two or three meetings each year," she says. "I probably wouldn't have made such an effort if I'd been in Boston." (When she arrives at the meetings, her Swiss credentials bring her a little extra attention. "I've had a lot of people tell me that my English is very good," she says.)

American researchers in Europe don't have to rely entirely on the generosity of their host institutions. There are many fellowships and scholarships to ease the transition overseas. The National Science Foundation supports American researchers in Europe through its International Research Fellowship Program. The two-year award covers salary, travel, relocation, and, if needed, language training. The Human Frontier Science Program offers postdoctoral fellowships to American researchers who propose to study in Japan or one of 16 European countries. European institutions such as the European Molecular Biology Organization and Britain's Royal Society provide fellowships for international researchers.

Such organizations evidently see some value in a global exchange of scientific talent. There's no doubt that European labs get a boost when bright Americans show up at the bench. But the researchers themselves have something to gain, too. Gladfelter says she had more independence as a postdoc in Switzerland than she ever could have had in the States. At Basel, she supervised a small group of undergraduates and ran her lab with a surprising amount of autonomy.

All along, she believed her overseas gamble would be rewarded. "A few people will appreciate the fact that you took the path less taken," she says.