Dr. Stephen Kirkland
Dr. Stephen Kirkland appointed the Postdoctoral Fellow Affairs Lead in the Faculty of Graduate Studies
The Faculty of Graduate studies recently developed a new lead role designed to support units in supporting postdoctoral fellows through fostering professional development for postdoctoral fellows, providing information on current ideas related to the mentorship and development of postdoctoral fellows and strategizing future initiatives to strengthen the postdoctoral community.
We recently sat down with Dr. Kirkland to ask him to share his background, vision for the role, and insights into his plans to support the postdoctoral community.
Q: Can you tell us a bit about your background and what brought you to this role?
I am a mathematician by training, and reflecting on my education I am struck by how influential the years I spent as a Postdoctoral Fellow were on my career and on the trajectory of my research. I spent two years as a Postdoc at Queen’s University, where I was welcomed into an extremely generous and collaborative research group there. My experience at Queen’s really informed my approach to mentorship: encourage your mentees’ curiosity, celebrate their successes, treat them like human beings. After Queen’s I held another Postdoctoral appointment at the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (University of Minnesota), which was having a themed year in my research area. Over 12 months at the IMA I met many of the leading researchers working in my area. Consequently, I developed a wide network of colleagues and collaborators, and the connections that I forged at IMA propelled my research forward for many years. I learned how valuable such a network is to an early career researcher, and now I underline that importance to my mentees.
Suffice to say that my experience as a Postdoc was foundational to my development as a scholar. So when FGS assumed responsibility for Postdoctoral Fellows at the end of 2022, I really wanted to ensure that FGS would provide a supportive and responsive home for the UM’s postdocs.
I had a brilliant experience as a Postdoc, and I’m keen to ensure that our Postdoctoral Fellows at the UM have as positive an experience as I did.
Q: Do you have any immediate or long term goals or projects you’re focusing on?
Over the long term, I would like to support our Postdocs in developing a sense of community across UM. At any one time we have between 140-170 Postdoctoral Fellows at UM, and while they are scattered over a number of units, there are many common questions and issues facing them. What resources are available to Postdocs at the UM? How can they develop their professional skills? What strategies can they use for juggling the competing demands of research, career prospects, and home life? By coming together as a community, UM’s Postdocs can share their knowledge of and experience with these common concerns, and help each other navigate the Postdoctoral path. A major step was recently taken in this direction: the GSA is supporting the formation of an association for the University’s Postdoctoral Fellows, which will take on an advocacy and community-building role for our postdocs.
Over the shorter term, I’m excited about Postdoc Appreciation Week, which takes place each year in the third week of September. Since 2023 FGS has marked that week with 3MP, the Postdoctoral analogue of the 3-Minute Thesis competition that runs for graduate students. My intention is that FGS will ramp up its events for Postdoc Appreciation Week — it’s a great chance for the University to celebrate the successes of its Postdocs and make them feel included as key contributors to the UM community.
Q: What opportunities are available to Postdoctoral Fellows at UM?
As I mentioned earlier, the Three Minute Postdoctoral Competition, or 3MP, runs annually and it’s a great opportunity for Postdocs to present their research to an audience of non-experts. There’s an art to communicating complex research ideas in an accessible way, and 3MP gives Postdocs a chance to exercise their expository muscles. It also provides a compelling snapshot of the exciting research that is undertaken by UM’s Postdocs.
FGS also offers the Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow Awards, which recognize important contributions to research and mentoring. Three awards are offered annually, in the categories of health sciences, natural sciences and engineering, and social sciences and humanities. The winners are recognized at an annual reception.
FGS has developed an onboarding document for Postdoctoral Fellows, which helps incoming Postdocs find the resources that are available to them, and includes a list of topics that the Postdoc may want to follow up on with their unit and/or advisor. There is also a template for an annual progress report for Postdoctoral Fellows. While the progress report itself is optional, it’s there as a starting point for conversations that can provide valuable feedback for both the Postdoc and the advisor. Information on these and more for Postdoctoral Fellows at UM can be found on the Postdoctoral Fellows website.
Beyond those resources, there are plenty of other support options for Postdoctoral Fellows. These include the academic programming offered by the English Language Centre, workshops given by the Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, as well as access to the Graduate Teaching Program for postdocs looking to enhance their pedagogical skills. There’s also FGS’s series of GradSteps workshops on professional development, and FGS’s Graduate Education Mentoring program for those who are engaged with graduate student mentoring.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to share with the postdoctoral community as you begin this role?
Many of our Postdoctoral fellows are in a liminal career phase — they’re no longer graduate students, but they are still developing as scholars. I’m looking forward to heightening the visibility of these important members of the UM community, and I’m ready to listen to constructive ideas for accomplishing that objective. Our Postdoctoral Fellows deserve every opportunity to excel at UM.