OPA - Oregon State University Postdoctoral Association

Welcome to OPA!

The Oregon State University Postdoctoral Association (OPA) aims to provide a social network for all OSU-affiliated postdocs and a framework for liaising with and advising the Director of the Office of Postdoctoral Programs (OPP) at OSU. For the purposes of this organization, an OSU postdoc is defined as anyone who is affiliated with OSU and holds a PhD or equivalent degree, but does not hold a professorial position. The OPA is an auxiliary enterprise of the OSU Graduate School.

comic strip from phdcomics.com

SAVE THE DATE!!

OPA Spring Social & Picnic. Saturday June 8th (1 to 5pm) at Avery Park. More info here.

Postdoc Survival Guide (2.8 MB pdf file) - a great resource for recently (or yet to be) hired postdocs at OSU... Check it out !!

OPA-LINKS:

OSU Postdoc stats (courtesy of B. Bond, OPP)

National Postdoctoral Association, a non-profit organization that seeks sustainable change and improvement for the postdoctoral experience.

Thanks for visiting! We hope you have found the information you were looking for. If you have any comments or just want to get in touch, please send us an e-mail and we will reply as soon as we can!.

This page has been created on March 8, 2012.
Last updated: April 17, 2013

About Us

Our Mission

OPA's mission is to bring together OSU-affiliated postdocs in a social setting in order to build a postdoc community on campus, to identify needs for professional development and well-being, and to communicate those needs to the university.

To download a PDF copy of the OPA Charter click here.

Our Goals

To mentor one another and forge professional and personal connections among all OSU-affiliated postdocs.
To coordinate and collaborate on professional and personal development opportunities for all OSU-affiliated postdocs.
To raise awareness of professional development opportunities; and to improve the campus climate for all OSU-affiliated postdocs.

OPA Board

OPA's Board currently consists of eight individuals, devided into two categories: executive members and additional positions. Please click here to meet all current members of the OPA board. OPA board members meet on a regular basis to discuss about issues relevant to OSU postdoc community. Minutes from our meetings may be found here.

Executive members: Chair, Vice-chair, Secretary and Treasurer.
Additional positions: Membership coordinator, Committee coordinator, Grants coordinator, Public Relations coordinator and Webmaster.

Membership

All postdocs at Oregon State University are automatically members of the OPA. They may choose to participate in any or all the events that are organized, or may opt out of our mailing list if they choose not to participate in or be advised of any of our activities.

Board Meetings

OPA Board Meetings

The OPA holds board meetings on a regular basis, usually once a month, where its members discuss about issues relevant to OSU postdoc community. Minutes from these meetings are publicly available (most of them, at least) and may be downloaded as PDF files. Please click on the following links.

2012

May, June, July, August, September, October and November.

2013

January, February, March, April, May, June.

OPA - Board members

Meet the Board!

Board members were voted by the OPA community on April 13th, 2012.

Siba Das [siba.das AT oregonstate.edu], Chair. Environmental and Molecular Toxicology Department.
Michelle Kappes [michelle.kappes AT oregonstate.edu], Vice-Chair. Fisheries and Wildlife Department.
Kerry Grimm [kerry.grimm AT oregonstate.edu], Secretary. College of Forestry.
David Haim [david.haim AT oregonstate.edu], Treasurer. Department of Forest Engineering, Resources and Management.
Rebecca Hutchinson [rah AT eecs.oregonstate.edu], Committee Coordinator. School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
David Dickson [david.dickson AT oregonstate.edu], Grants Coordinator. College of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciencies.
Julie Alexander [alexanju AT science.oregonstate.edu], Memebership Coordinator. Microbiology Department.
Linnéa Andersson [linnea.andersson AT oregonstate.edu], Public Relations Coordinator. School of Chemical, Biological & Environmental Engineering.
Guillermo M. Díaz Méndez [guillermo.diaz AT oregonstate.edu], Webmaster. School of Civil and Construction Engineering.

The new Board will work hard to ensure OPA provides you with support and opportunities during your postdoctoral experience. Please never hesitate to contact us with ideas, suggestions, or concerns.

OSU Postdoc Appreciation Week (PAW)

Postdoc Appreciation Week (PAW)

The National Postdoc Appreciation Week being promoted by the National Postdoctoral Association was held from September 17 through 21 of 2012. OPP and OPA hosted the following activities for all OSU Postdocs.

1. Monday 9/17 (12:00-1:00pm @ RICH 313): Lunch/forum for postdocs. This was a time for postdocs across campus to get together to meet each other and talk about subjects of mutual interest.

2. Wednesday 9/19 (12:00-1:00pm @ RICH 115): A workshop on financial planning for postdocs presented by a representative from the Clarity Wealth Development group.

3. Thursday 9/20 (4:30-7:00pm @ MU 109): Postdoc Poster Session (POPS). This event was meant for the postdocs to show case their research to the campus community and have an increased interaction among themselves. The event was attended by many administrators, faulty, postdocs and students. The Gazette Times ran an article on the event and the Postdoc Appreciation Week.

OSU Postdoc stats

Stats and metrics about us!

This compilation of statistics is a courtesy of Barb Bond, the director of the Office of Postdoctoral Programs.

About a year ago, the OPP and OPA agreed to define the postdoctoral community at OSU in its broadest sense as those people who have earned PhD’s or similar advanced degrees and hold non-professorial positions. We know that Research Associates are not actually postdocs, but they have many similarities, interests and concerns as postdocs, so it makes sense to include Research Associates in the communications to and about postdocs. We’re compiling information about the postdoctoral community to share with funding agencies, administrators, and potential employers and we thought you might like to see what this information looks like. Keep in mind that yours is a very dynamic community, so this is just a snapshot as of May, 2012.

For an updated report (prepared January 2013), please click here.

There are currently about 300 people in one of OSU’s five non-professorial job categories (left) that require PhDs. Their distribution along the OSU campus is shown to the right. In addition to the above, there are many PhD-holding employees in other job categories that do not explicitly require PhD’s (including some Instructors and Faculty Research Assistants) – but we don’t have any straightforward way to keep track of those people so they are not included in these figures.

For detailed & up to date statistics, please contact Barb Bond at the OPP.