Beyond the Bench: Postdoctoral Education in Leadership, Communication, Diplomacy and Policy.

by Kaitlyn Sadtler, PhD

Academic research​ is an ever-evolving field, from the techniques that we use to the people that are involved in both the bench side as well as in the clinic. Increasingly, there is broad participation of disparate academic fields to achieve high-impact. While previously we had seen technical efforts focused on narrow scientific areas—for example there were the synthetic chemists, and the physicists, and the molecular biologists—we are now entering a world where in order for discovery to be truly innovative, there is convergence between these various disciplines in a single project. For example, in the field of gene editing, it is not surprising to see a cell biologist (who is informed of the molecular underpinnings of the disease in question) and a geneticist (for the structure and function of missing or non-working genes) connect with materials scientists and chemists who can engineer a nanoparticle approach for the successful delivery of these gene-therapies as well as tune material surface properties to optimize drug delivery kinetics. And of course, add to this a team of clinicians who can determine the ultimate outcome in patients!

In this ever-evolving research realm, postdoctoral fellows are often thrown into a world that is quite different from their doctoral studies, with the goal of expanding their education beyond what they learned in graduate school. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that young scientists should also hone their skills beyond the bench, for example in science communication and policy. In order to better engage with the public and have non-scientists understand the impact of research—from basic to clinical studies—we must be able to relay such information to a variety of audiences, very few of whom really have the level of expertise in a particular technical area.

The term “Ph.D.” stands for Philosophiae Doctor in Latin. This comes from the original description of science being in the realm of natural philosophy, and the term science truly did not come into its own until the nineteenth century. Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which described the basics of physics and calculus, translates to Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Historically, the Ph.D. degree corresponded to an in-depth study of the natural sciences, with appreciation for varying processes in the terrestrial and extraterrestrial worlds. We must remember the fact that researchers holding the Ph.D. degree are natural philosophers. Though our field of study may be specific, it is intertwined with other research disciplines, which all depend on our society as a whole. In order to truly have impact on this world, our work must bridge disciplines, and be communicated to policy makers, patients, funding agencies, citizens from varying backgrounds and nations, different genders, and of course young rising scientists.