3. Postdoctoral Program - MSRI

Year of PhD Number
2008–2009 654
2007 97
2002–2006 314
1997–2001 163
1992–1996 126
1987–1991 102
1982–1986 86
< 1982 266
Unknown 231
Non PhD 8
Totals 2047
The table at the left gives PhD ‘age’ data for the workshop participants
in the year 2007–8, a representative year. The number of
future PhDs is largely due to graduate students at workshops.
The format of individual workshops is variable. For a 5-day programmatic
conference for example, there are typically around 20–25
research talks and/or panel discussions. Each talk is videorecorded
and (within a couple of weeks) made available on MSRI’s VMath
web site, along with the lecturer’s slides and/or the notes of a designated
notetaker. The number of attendees is variable and is limited
by our seating capacity, which is about 170 persons. This limit has
occasionally been reached and exceeded, but a more typical attendance
is around 120 persons.
The workshops in a given year break down as follows: There are usually 12 programmatic (four
each of Connections for Women, Introductory, and Topical), about 5–10 non-programmatic (1–2
hot topics, 1–2 outreach, 1–3 educational, 1–2 interdisciplinary, and a few other), and about 4–6
summer graduate schools. The NSF funds all of these except for a few of the non-programmatic
ones. We also leverage the NSF core support with supplemental funds from the NSA, divisions
outside of DMS but still within the NSF, and private foundations. For example, over the past 5
years we have budgeted $20–25K of core NSF funds for each of the 5-day programmatic workshops
and also ask the NSA to supplement those amounts for workshops whose topics are within their
area of interest. Connections for Women workshops (which are typically 2 days and are held in
conjunction with the introductory programmatic workshops) are funded at about $8–10K each.
There have been more workshops funded by DMS-0441170 than can be listed individually here.
The complete listing of those can be obtained from the yearly reports.
Postdoctoral Fellows
In the 5-academic-year period 2005–10, MSRI has had 147 postdoctoral fellows (PDFs) in its
scientific programs, of which 43 were female (making 29% of the total) and 11 identified themselves
as members of under-represented minorities (making 7.5% of the total).
Of these, 98 (67%) came from US institutions. Breaking the data on these individuals down
into source classified according to the AMS groupings of US institutions yields the following table,
in which the columns tell where the PDFs went after their fellowships ended. For example, of the
45 PDFs that were at Group I Private institutions prior to arriving at MSRI, 31 went back to
Group I Private institutions, 7 went to Group I Public institutions, 5 went to foreign instituions
and the other two went to Group II and M.
Home Institution Group I Private Group I Public Group II Group III Group M Totals
Group I private 31 7 1 1 0 40
Group I public 7 16 0 0 0 23
Group II 1 5 8 0 0 14
Group III 0 1 0 0 0 1
Group M 1 6 0 0 1 8
Foreign 5 6 1 0 0 12
Totals 45 41 10 1 1 98
In exit surveys (and the 2-year-after surveys that we have from the years 2005–6, 2007–8, and
2009–10), the postdoctoral fellows uniformly report strongly positive experiences. They typically
iii