Postdoctoral Fellows

The purpose of this handbook is to provide a brief description of campus units that provide services and resources to UC Irvine Postdoctoral Scholars. Reviewing this booklet enables the postdoctoral scholar to quickly acclimate to UC Irvine and take advantage of its wealth of professional and personal development opportunities.

Individual Development Plans (IDPs) provide a planning process that identifies the Postdoctoral Scholar’s general individual research goals, professional development and career objectives and can also serve as a communication tool between postdoctoral scholars and their PIs (supervisors/faculty mentors).

The Bio Sci Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is investing in a new pilot program to recruit and train a diverse pool of postdoctoral fellows who are interested in pursuing academic careers. The program will provide two $25,000 recruitment fellowships, to be used by mentoring faculty to recruit highly competitive postdoctoral fellows. Eligible fellows must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents, have received their Ph.D. (or equivalent) degree within the last three years, demonstrate a strong commitment to inclusive excellence and a clear interest in applying for academic positions within the UC system. 

The UC Irvine Postdoctoral Association (PDA) is a grassroots, volunteer organization that was officially recognized in 2009 as an advisory group to the UCIrvine Graduate Division (who has primary responsibility for overseeing the postdoctoral experience). All postdocs can participate in PDA events! The PDA board is a group of enthusiastic volunteer postdocs dedicated to supporting the postdoc community by providing professional development programs as well as social/networking events.

The Postdoc Academy, provided by edX, is the first comprehensive and flexible professional development online course designed for postdocs and created by postdocs. It is a 6-week online course that provides skill development, from orientation to your next career steps and connects you to the experiences of the national postdoc community! Each week will focus on one theme and contains 2 – 4 hours of content, including video modules, engaging discussion forums, and self-reflection. This course is self-paced and you can complete the course work at any time while the course is running! Participants will have the option to request a certificate of completion at the end of the course. You can also participate in the Postdoc Academy Learning Sessions (PALS), a small learning community at UC Irvine that meets once a week while taking the Postdoc Academy course.