Professional Development Workshops and Seminars
The Northwestern University Postdoctoral Association (NUPA) offers free workshops, seminars, and coffee chats with alumni to help postdoctoral trainees and students improve their career prospects, explore alternative career paths and develop skills for career success. Many events are open to postdocs and graduate students, i.e., you do not have to be a NU postdoc to participate.
If you are interested in learning more email nupa@northwestern.edu. Stay tuned for more exciting events by following our Eventbrite page and on the Professional Development channel on our Slack.
Upcoming events
Past Events
How to Prepare for Faculty Job Applications
Are you thinking about applying for tenure-track professor positions in the future? Do you have questions about the process of preparing your materials and what applying for jobs is like? If so, we are planning to host this event to help answer your questions. We will have a short presentation and have panelists to discuss their experience preparing for the academic job market.
Join us with Dr. Julia Oktawiec, Dr. Cat Majors and Dr. Jenna Christensen.
Zoom, Friday, May 31, 2024, 2 – 3pm CDT
Initiating and Succeeding with Critical Advisor Conversations
EVERYONE struggles with having critical conversations with their advisors. Whether you wish to ask for a raise, solve a team conflict, discuss work/life integration, or talk about which of your current postdoc projects you can take with you when you leave the group, it is tricky to ask complicated questions and be heard in discussion, while simultaneously preserving and even growing advisee-advisor relationships.
To support postdocs and their mentors, the Postdoc Academy created the Productive Postdoc Conversation toolkit. Informed by research and interviews of postdocs and faculty members, the toolkit helps facilitate mentoring conversations on topics crucial for the postdoc experience.
Speaker: Prof. Bennett Goldberg (he/him) – Goldberg is an expert in research mentoring, specifically supporting PhDs, postdocs and early career faculty both in the US and abroad. Goldberg co-created the Postdoc Academy project that has reached 10,000 postdocs nationwide and has led postdoc learning communities in strategic professional development at Northwestern for five years.
Friday, May 17, 2024, 3:30 – 4:30pm CDT
Location: Feinberg School of Medicine – McGaw – Kellerman Classroom (McGaw 2-322)
Thursday, May 16, 2024, 3:30 – 4:30 pm CDT
Location: 2nd Floor atrium F-wing in Tech. Earth and Planetary Sciences open space
How to Start a Lab: Making the Transition from Postdoc to PI
Curious about launching your own lab and transitioning from postdoc life?
Join our panel discussion to get expert advice from Northwestern professors who recently made this transition.
Panelists: Dr. Ann Kennedy, Assistant Professor in Neuroscience; Dr. Junsoo Kim, Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering; Dr. Lisa Johnson, Assistant Professor in Medical Social Sciences.
Zoom, Thursday, May 2, 2024, 4 – 5pm CDT
Financial Dimensions of Startup Enterprises
Zoom, Thursday, April 18, 2024 12 – 1pm CDT
Why Did a Medical Startup Not Work Out?
A medical device startup that did not work out, you tell me why after you hear the story.
Speaker: Michele Migliuolo, Professor of Entrepreneurship, Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship.
Michele brings extensive experience as an executive in manufacturing and sales of scientific capital equipment and analytical instruments. His diverse background includes roles as a longtime angel investor, advisor, and coach for technology startups. Michele is also an entrepreneur, having co-founded five high-tech companies in the semiconductor, medical device, and energy sectors. He is well-versed in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, having served as an executive in residence, consultant, and mentor for startup incubators and economic development agencies in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Zoom, Thursday, March 21, 2024 3 – 4 pm CDT
NIH K99/R00 Panel Discussion
The NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award is a prestigious and empowering award designed to aid postdoctoral researchers (or clinician-scientists) in their transition to being independent researchers in tenure-track positions. However, this award has a 20 – 25% success rate. What are the factors that influence which applications get chosen for funding? What types of struggles do applicants have when applying that are avoidable (and ones that aren’t)? Many postdocs at Northwestern in health-related fields are considering applying for this award, so we at NUPA wanted to provide a panel geared toward answering some of these and other questions. Our panelists include Professor Joshua Ziarek, who is a former K99/R00 recipient and a current member of the Department of Pharmacology at Northwestern as well as someone who served on NIH study sections assessing K99/R00 awards, and two current awardees, Dr. Catherine Majors and Dr. Ewa Bomba-Warczak (who has the MOSAIC K99/R00 in particular). We look forward to seeing you there! Please email julia.oktawiec@northwestern.edu with questions you are interested in posing to the panelists.
Zoom, Thursday, February 22, 2024, 11am – 12pm CST
Information Session on Immigrant Visa Options for Postdoctoral Scholars
This event aims to provide our international postdoctoral scholars with valuable insights into the USA immigration and visa process.
TGS Commons, Evanston. Friday, January 26, 2024, 3 – 7pm CST
Research Impact Workshop
From career advancement to research funding, researchers are often asked to demonstrate the biggest impact to the widest possible audiences. In this presentation we will discuss practical strategies for establishing a strong online presence about your expertise, enhancing and tracking the impact of your work, and using metrics to communicate your research impact. We will also discuss the importance of responsible metrics, which includes quantitative indicators and qualitative reviews. We will wrap up with a conversation on recent developments in scholarly communications, which may influence research dissemination and evaluation.
Karen Gutzman is Head of Research Assessment and Communications at Galter Health Sciences Library and Learning Center where she develops, supports, and implements programs that increase awareness about digital scholarship and issues in the digital environment among faculty, researchers, and students at Feinberg School of Medicine.
Chicago Campus : Tue, January 10, 2023, 1-2pm.
Location: Galter Health Sciences Library, Confrence Room 303 East Chicago Avenue #2-212 Chicago, IL 60611
Registration: Sign up for this event
Evanston Campus : Mon, January 9, 2023, 1-2pm.
Location: Galter Health Sciences Library, Confrence Room 303 East Chicago Avenue #2-212 Chicago, IL 60611
Registration: Sign up for this event
Time Management for Postdocs
Today’s researchers are starved for time. Every researcher can benefit from learning new and better ways to effectively plan, prioritize and schedule their daily activities. Because the techniques chosen to manage time must be tailored to fit each person’s individual style, the better we know ourselves, the more we will improve. In this session, Gracey Lichtenstein, Manager of Training at CuraLinc Healthcare will introduce techniques for managing time, and help you identify areas that need improvement and learn the organizational skills needed to make research efforts successful.
Chicago Campus : Wed, December 7, 2022, 4-5pm.
Location: Galter Health Sciences Library, Confrence Room 303 East Chicago Avenue #2-212 Chicago, IL 60611
Registration: Sign up for this event
Evanston Campus : Tue, December 6, 2022, 4-5pm.
Location: Galter Health Sciences Library, Confrence Room 303 East Chicago Avenue #2-212 Chicago, IL 60611
Registration: Sign up for this event
Immigration and Visa Options for Postdocs
The U.S. immigration system is complex and constantly changing. During this seminar, immigration attorney William B. Schiller, will discuss recent developments that impact international Postdocs. The seminar will also cover temporary and permanent residence immigration options, with particular emphasis on pathways to permanent residence under the employment-based first and second preferences including National Interest Waivers (NIW), Extraordinary Ability, Outstanding Professors and Researchers, and immigration under the labor certification process.
Following the presentation, Mr. Schiller will be available to discuss a few individual situations on a first come first served basis. If interested, please select I need a personal consultation option upon registration. NUPA professional development committee will contact you with more information.
Evanston Campus : Thu, October 20, 2022, 3-5pm.
Location: TGS Commons 2122 Sheridan Rd, RM #120 Evanston, IL 60201
Registration: Sign up for this event
Chicago Campus : Fri, October 21, 2022, 4-6pm.
Location: Galter Health Sciences Library, Confrence Room 303 East Chicago Avenue #2-212 Chicago, IL 60611
Registration: Sign up for this event
Fall Peer Writing Hour – Evanston
Tue, Sept 26th 4-6pm. In this Peer Writing Hour atendeed will be connected with other NU postdocs to exchange writing, receive feedback and improve grant application or manuscript. Furthermore, we will dive into available writing resources at NU.
Location: TGS Commons 2122 Sheridan Rd, RM #120 Evanston, IL 60201
Fall Peer Writing Hour – Chicago
Mon, Sept 27th 4-6pm. In this Peer Writing Hour attendees will be connected with other NU postdocs to exchange writing, receive feedback and improve grant application or manuscript. Furthermore, we will dive into available writing resources at NU.
Location: Galter Health Sciences Library, Confrence Room 303 East Chicago Avenue, #2-212, Chicago, IL 60611
The NIH Biosketch Workshop
Biosketch is a compact version of your curriculum vitae, in a specific format required by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH has both required and recommended elements to include in your sketch. This presentation will show you some examples of language used in biosketches – by Feinberg researchers – to summarize research and research impact.
Elevator Pitch Competition 2021
Last winter, our professional development series ended with a finale “Elevator Pitch Competition” event with Byron Stewart, Barbara Shwom, and Beth Healey as judges. We had great participation from postdocs across NU and a few enthusiastic postdocs from PSU.
Winners of Pitch Slam 2021 :
Cat Majors works in the Tyo Research Group in the Chemical & Biological Engineering Department on a protein engineering project aimed at improving antigen detection diagnostics. When she isn’t catering to the needs of her bacteria in the lab, you can find her working with fellow NUPA officers to create community among postdocs at Northwestern, spoiling her beagle Barney, playing the mandolin, and knitting tiny sweaters for her niece and nephews.
Dishary Banerjee is a postdoctoral scholar at Pennsylvania State University. Her interests broadly span across establishing cutting-edge bioprinting science and technology for engineering a wide variety of human tissues. A current focus of her research is on the fabrication of a three-dimensional (3D) robust breathing lung model to facilitate the study of human immune responses to viral infections like COVID19.
Vikram is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Department of Otolaryngology, Northwestern University- Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois. He is working with Dr. Bruce Tan, and his area of research is focused on decoding the mystery behind olfactory loss in patients suffering from Chronic Rhinosinusitis. He is an automobile enthusiast and an avid runner. In his spare time, he likes to go on long hikes.
Ewa is currently a postdoctoral trainee in the lab of Jeffrey Savas at the Department of Neurology at Northwestern University, where she uses advanced mass spectrometry and metabolic labeling of animals to investigate proteins with exceptionally long-lived lifespans. Born on a small farm in Poland, Ewa enjoys spending time outdoors together with her husband and two kids, roasting (and drinking) coffee, and traveling.
Betsy Schock moved to Northwestern University in 2017 and joined the LaBonne lab. Her current research using frogs focuses on understanding the stem cell properties of neural crest cells, the progenitors of the facial skeleton. During her PhD at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in the lab of Samantha Brugmann, she studied craniofacial development using mouse and chick model systems.