The Yale Physics Department’s Postdoctoral Advisory Committee (PDAC) recently held its Spring 2024 town hall meeting.
The current committee consists of Isabella Graf (postdoctoral associate), Karsten Heeger (Eugene Higgins Professor and Chair of Physics and director of Yale Wright Laboratory), Daphne Klemme (senior administrative assistant and postdoctoral and scientist appointments coordinator), Farnik Nikakhtar (YCAA Fellow), Yogesh Patil (associate research scientist, and a member of Yale’s Wright Lab), Jorge Torres (postdoctoral associate, and a member of Yale’s Wright Lab, and Meg Urry (Israel Munson Professor of Physics and director of postdoctoral affairs).
Urry explained that the committee and other attending postdocs discussed their concerns and what they would like to accomplish in the coming year including:
- How prospective postdocs could get better information about which visas would work best for them—and how to keep faculty informed about the options.
- Coordinating monthly lunches supported by the department centered around discussion topics and/or presentations.
- Building community outside of research groups through PDAC-initiated activities and encouraging participation in town halls.
Torres said, “We also talked about coordinating with the Yale Postdoctoral Association (YPA) to have a physics postdoc to act as a liaison between the YPA and the PDAC, as well as having a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document for incoming postdocs.”
The PDAC serves as a point of communication between postdocs and junior research scientists and the administration of the department. The committee advises the chair, the director of postdoctoral affairs, and other faculty on matters related to postdocs and the postdoc program, including (but not limited to) helping plan and organize annually scheduled departmental events. The committee also advocates on behalf of postdocs with the chair and the director of postdoctoral affairs. Committee members are appointed for one calendar year. The composition of the committee includes postdocs who represent inclusive and diverse sets of interests. Further information can be found here on the PDAC web page.