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The Yale Postdoctoral Association is dedicated to connecting Yale postdocs to campus resources and creating opportunities for networking with other postdocs.
If you have any question or would like to get involved, pop us an e-mail at ypa@yale.edu.
Regular meetings are held monthly. If you would like to become involved in the YPA, attendance at these meetings is highly recommended. We are currently seeking new volunteers to join our advocacy, professional development and communications committees. The next monthly meeting is scheduled on Tuesday, February 13th at 6:00 p.m in the Seminar room (Cushing Exhibition Center) of the Medical School Library.
All postdocs are welcome to attend all YPA events!
Synopsis
Cuban Salsa Class/ Dance Night
Ice Hockey Game: Yale-Princeton
YPA Music Series: Yale Philharmonia Orchestra Concert
Professional Development Committee
First Annual Postdoc Symposium
!UPDATE: LinkedIn Bootcamp
From the Professional Development Committee
Online course: Advancing Learning through Evidence-based STEM Teaching
Mentorship 101: Four-week Short Course
Leveraging Career Services for the Non-Academic Job Search
Career Strategy Advice at West Campus
Spotlight
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Welcome to the February issue of spotlight! In this issue, we will be interviewing Jenny and Courtney who brought the Advocacy subcommittee to the YPA. The YPA is currently looking for passionate and dedicated volunteers to continue the advocacy efforts when Jenny and Courtney step down.
Why did you become involved with the YPA?
It all started with a conversation between Courtney and I and the YPA co-chairs back then, Drew and Kat Hastings. Courtney and I approached Drew and Kat because we were organizing some events in our own department to look at the makeup of our community and ways to make work-life better for postdocs and graduate students. We had some meetings with Diversity Dean Darin Latimore and saw a need for the larger Yale postdoc community as well. The Advocacy committee was formed soon after meeting with Drew and Kat, when we presented our ideas at the monthly YPA meeting.
Why is advocacy important in the YPA?
Advocacy is important because postdocs are an especially vulnerable population with little institutional support relative to other career stages. Each laboratory and department has a different culture, and the level of mentorship and support we get can be widely variable. The postdoc period is a critical period when the stakes are very high. We have to decide whether to stay in academia, start a family, in addition to juggling a rigorous work load. Many of us are international and thus have additional challenges of adjusting to American culture and dealing with visa issues. Thus, having an organization like the YPA to advocate on behalf of our community and communicate our needs to the university is crucial.
What is your vision for advocacy within the YPA?
We want to gauge and serve the needs of our community. To do this, we need to collect data and have ongoing open communication with the community. Our demographics data project and last year’s community forum started to put our vision into reality.We hope to attract new members to work on addressing specific needs and goals identified by the forum.
Do you have any advice for the wider postdoc community?
Please get involved with the YPA and Advocacy committee! We need people to help advocate for specific needs of postdocs. Come to a monthly YPA meeting to learn about how you can be involved. Any ideas you have on how your life at Yale could improve will likely be helpful to the rest of the community as well.
Community & Networking Events
Cuban Salsa Class/ Dance Night
Cuban Salsa is a social partner dance similar to salsa that also incorporates flavors from rumba and afro cuban rhythms. The most unique aspect of cuban salsa is that it can be danced with a partner or as a group in a “rueda”. Dancers form a circle and execute moves in unison based on a caller. Partners are switched frequently and more complex group level patterns are also possible. Students can expect to learn fundamental footwork, rueda basics, and more complex partner and group patterns. For questions please contact amanda.rodrigue@yale.edu.
No partner or prior experience is necessary for this event, join in on the fun!
When: Wednesday, February 7th| 8:00-10:00 PM
Where: Gryphon’s Pub (204 York Street)
RSVP: RSVP here.
Ice Hockey Game: Yale-Princeton
THE DEADLINE TO SIGN UP FOR AND PAY FOR TICKETS IS SUNDAY FEBRUARY 4th BY MIDNIGHT!
When: Saturday, February 10th | 7pm
Where: Ingalls Rink, 73 Sachem St, New Haven, CT 06511 (Directions to the venue.)
RSVP: Price per ticket is $13. To book tickets through the YPA, Register here. To make payments for tickets, click here.
Feel free to contact us (judit.jimenezsainz@yale.edu) if you have any questions and/or suggestions. Thank you!
Amateur Acting Theater Group
With the post-doctoral association, I (Diane) would like to start a collaborative acting group to relax around theater exercises, develop our acting skills and styles, work on texts, and why not focus on a play. It does not matter if you have already acted or never.
When: Acting sessions will take place every Tuesday from 7:00-9:00 PM (first session:Tuesday, February 13th)
Where: 205 Prospect St., Sage Hall, Bowers Auditorium (floor 1.5)
Is it only for post-docs? Nope. If you are a graduate, a spouse, a teacher, or a New-Havener, you can join. I guess undergrads have their own groups but don’t refrain from joining as well.
RSVP: Email strauss.diane@gmail.com
Tea, Cookies & Crafting
We will be learning to make red baby hats to support the American Heart Association! Yarn will be provided, as well as some knitting needles and crochet hooks for beginners looking to learn. For experienced fiber artists: bring a size G (4 mm) crochet hook or size 4 (3.5 mm) 9” circular knitting needle. Bring cookies to share! Tea will be provided.
When: Wednesday, February 21st | 6:30-8:30 PM
Where: OISS (Office of International Students and Scholars)
YPA Happy Hour
Please join us for the monthly happy hour and meet new postdocs.
Where: Gryphon’s pub at (GPSCY)
When: Friday, February 16th | 6:00-8:00 PM
RSVP: None.
Last Saturday at the Museum
Please join us on the first YPA last saturday at the museum event in 2018.
When: Saturday, February 24th | 12:30-1:30 PM
Where: Yale Art Gallery
RSVP: Register here.
Toy, Food & Book Bank
Professional Development Committee
First Annual Postdoc Symposium
We invite you to the First Annual Postdoc Symposium to be held on Friday, June 8th, 2018 on the Yale campus. The symposium welcomes Postdocs and Associate Research Scientists (ARS) from all departments and fields of research to present their work to the Yale research community. This event is sponsored by the Yale postdoctoral association and is free for postdocs and ARS.
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LinkedIn for Postdocs Bootcamp
Center for Teaching and Learning | 301 York Street, Room 120A-B
In collaboration with Kaury Kucera, from CTL, YPA wants to help you make an awesome LinkedIn profile. Join us to learn how to use LinkedIn, receive expert feedback and work with your fellow postdocs to polish your profile. Come with your laptop ready to work. Food will be offered.
Registration link: https://goo.gl/X7wwDA
YPA Recommended Events
From the Advocacy Committee
POC Meditation
STEM Education Seminar: Recreating the Culture of Science in the Classroom
How can you design a STEM course where all students feel like they belong and can succeed? How can you integrate a strong sense of ethics and accountability into your courses? How can you make your teaching deliberate and explicit? Ideally, science would be all of these things: communal, ethical, and transparent. Prof. Johnson will describe his approach to creating a positive culture of science in his intro astronomy courses, which are centered around group problem-solving activities, and the impact this has had on increasing diversity in the astronomy concentration.
When: Friday, February 2nd | 2:00-3:00 PM
Where: Watson Center, A51, 60 Sachem St. New Haven, CT 06511
RSVP: none needed
Lunarfest
Lunarfest is a day-long event offering arts and cultural programs for adults and children of all ages in celebration of the Lunar New Year, kicking off with the Lion Dance down Whitney Avenue! This year, the theme of the festival is “People-to-People.”
People-to-People reflects a spirit of cross-cultural dialogue, specifically between the American and Chinese cultures. People-to-People also underscores the commonality of all people. Regardless of an individual’s culture, there are innate aspects of the human experience that connect us all around the world–humor, food, art, music, literature. This year’s festival will focus on promoting what brings us together—people-to-people.
The celebration kicks off at 10AM with a parade down Whitney Avenue between Grove Street and Trumbull Street led by Wan Chi Ming Hung Gar Institute’s Lion Dance performers and culminates in a performance by local artists on Audubon Street and a speech by New Haven Mayor Toni Harp. The Audubon Garage will offer free parking to the first 100 cars attending LUNARFEST, courtesy of Whitney-Audubon Retail & Arts District. After the parade, attendees are welcome to take advantage of a variety of discounts offered by local merchants of Whitney and Audubon in honor of LUNARFEST. Beginning at 12:30PM attendees may engage in a variety of family-friendly programs—including musical performances, painting demonstrations, martial arts demonstrations, arts and crafts, lectures, and dance.
When: Saturday, February 17th | 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Where: Yale-China Association, 442 Temple St, New Haven, Connecticut 06511
RSVP: yalechina.org/lunarfest
CBT Skills Group
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a set of techniques for changing patterns of thinking and behavior. CBT places an emphasis on helping individuals learn to be their own therapists. Through exercises in the course, as well as “homework” exercises outside of the course, individuals develop coping skills through which they can learn to modify their own thoughts, emotions, and behavior. The group is structured like a class and meets once weekly for approximately 1.5 hours, for 8 weeks, beginning in early February. Each session costs $10.
Earn a $30 refund for the completion of questionnaires distributed during the course.
Yale postdocs can email ypdc@yale.edu if they are interested in learning more about the group, and we will schedule a time to do a short phone questionnaire.
When: Starting in early February the group will meet Every Tuesday 5:00 - 6:30 PM
Where: Yale Psychology Department Clinic (located at 405 Temple Street)
From the Professional Development Committee
Online Course: Advancing Learning Through Evidence-Based STEM Teaching
This free online course provides preparation for current and future STEM faculty members in effective teaching strategies and fulfills the pedagogy course requirement for the Certificate of College Teaching Preparation (CCTP)!
Participants will learn how to (a) engage students in active learning in classrooms using strategies such as peer instruction and problem-based learning, (b) develop methods to help their students think more like experts in their fields using inquiry-based labs and similar activities, (c) turn their classrooms into learning communities through cooperative learning and using the diverse perspectives of their students, and (d) use approaches like flipped classrooms that make it possible to build active and collaborative learning into their classes.
When: February 5th – March 30th
Where: online
RSVP: Enroll here.
New! Mentorship 101 Four-week Short Course
Learn how to be an inspiring mentor!
This series will help participants:
1) Develop skills that promote successful mentor and mentee relationships
2) Gain strategies to be a more effective teacher and mentor for undergraduate students and in hands-on environments like a laboratory
3) Promote leadership in students and mentees to support mentorship networks
This series will focus on discussing techniques and strategies to be an effective mentor in a variety of settings. For more information contact Kaury Kucera at kaury.kucera@yale.edu.
When: Tuesday, February 6th , 13th , 20th , and 27th | 12:00-1:30 PM (Medical Campus) or Thursday February 15th , 22nd, March 1st and 8th | 12:00-1:30 PM
Where: SHM L101A (Medical Campus) or WC Conference Center, room 208 for the first session only / room 214 after (West Campus)
RSVP: To register for the medical campus, click here. To register for west campus, click here.
Leveraging Career Services for the Non-Academic Job Search
Join Brian Frenette from Yale’s Office of Career Strategy as he walks you through the various ways in which his department can help you through the non-academic job search. Receive introduction to the myriad resources at your disposal as a Yale student and understand the ways in which this process differentiates itself from the academic job search
When: Wednesday, February 7th | 9:00 – 10:00 AM
Where: West Campus, Conference Center, room 208
RSVP: To register, click here.
Career Strategy Advice at West Campus!
Join Brian Frenette, Julia Bourque, and Hyun Ja Shin of the Office of Career Strategy for one-on-one advising hours at West Campus!
Whether you are just contemplating a non-academic career path or have detailed questions about upcoming job applications, they are here to help! RSVP here for a 60-minute appointment that works for you. OCS realizes that students and postdocs at West Campus are not always able to make it to our main office at 55 Whitney Avenue, and therefore we are happy to come to you!
For more information about the Office of Career Strategy and our specific offerings, please go to http://ocs.yale.edu.
When: Wednesday, February 7th | 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Where: West Campus Conference Center (rooms 204 & 214)
RSVP: To register, click here.