Math's rising stars rescued from dismal job market
Arthur Szlam, a postdoctoral scholar in math for three years at UCLA, was facing the same predicament early this spring that many others looking for an academic job were up against — an anemic job market weakened by the economic downturn.
Hiring freezes and canceled job searches at universities and colleges across the country have left many newly minted Ph.D.s and postdocs who are looking for tenure-track positions desperate for work. The National Science Foundation (NSF) estimates nearly 400 positions for recent Ph.D.s have been lost.
The dearth of academic jobs is not just a personal loss for these young scientists, who have invested five years in their graduate education, typically supported in part by state and federal funds. It also degrades the nationwide effort to remain competitive in the sciences and limits hopes that a highly trained workforce of scientists could help resuscitate the economy.
"This year has been very bad," said Szlam, who worked as an assistant professor under a special program at UCLA. "Some people were able to find jobs, but for me, it didn't go that well." If nothing resulted, he thought, he might be able to get an extension of his postdoctoral contract for one year. After that, he faced the possibility of being forced to take a non-academic job.
Fortunately Szlam became one of eight young math scientists selected from about 500 applicants nationwide for newly created postdoctoral fellowships at UCLA's Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM).
"It's really great. … It's not that I would have starved," said Szlam whose fellowship will run for two years. "But it gives me two opportunities to continue my academic career," by applying for jobs next year and the year after that.
"The timing was perfect," said Eddie Herman, a new fellow who is receiving his Ph.D. this month at UCLA. "Most academic positions are decided by the middle of March," and advertising for the fellowships was posted that month "at exactly the time when many of us were losing hope of finding a research position and were ready to look for other jobs."
To the rescue IPAM is one of seven designated NSF Mathematical Sciences Research Institutes that together pulled off an eleventh-hour rescue, helping 45 rising stars in math stay in academia for one to two years until the job market gets healthier.
The 45 positions in research and teaching are funded by the NSF Division of Mathematical Sciences. Each of the seven institutes, which employ the fellows, created programs along different lines. For example, postdocs selected by the Palo Alto-based American Institute of Mathematics will fill a desperate need for math instructors at De Anza Community College in Cupertino, Calif., and at San Francisco State University.
Creating a program for fellows at IPAM posed something of a problem because "we don't employ postdocs," said Russ Caflisch, director of IPAM and a math professor. "We don't even have space for them here. So we had to create something from scratch – and fast."
What IPAM devised over a matter of weeks was a program aligned with the institute's primary goal: to promote interdisciplinary interaction between pure and applied mathematics and science, engineering or medicine.
"These positions not only refine the research skills of new Ph.D.s, but provide them with opportunities to apply their training in other settings," Caflisch said.
This was not about creating busy work for second-tier scholars, he continued. "These people, we found, are truly brilliant. They have invested a lot of time and money in their education, and now, because of the job market, they were being forced to think about changing fields."
The perfect fit For IPAM, the postdocs will be doing research on interdisciplinary projects under mentors from academic and industrial institutions across five different states. Some of these mentors were able to fund part of the fellowships, enabling IPAM to create additional fellowships.
In September, Szlam heads to New York University to work with Professor Yann LeCun, a computer scientist and pioneer in the field of neuro networks. "I'm extremely excited," said Szlam, who will work on developing tools using the geometry of datasets to solve signal-processing and machine-learning problems.
Another IPAM fellow, Marco Duarte, who will be getting his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Rice University this July, will be working with math and electrical engineering faculty at Princeton University on devising new applications in computer science to advance machine learning and compressed sensing.
"I knew things were going to be especially difficult this year," Duarte said. "I was hoping for the best, but …" After applying for positions at 30 different universities, he had not landed a single interview.
With the fellowship and a chance to work in two disciplines, Duarte found "the perfect fit for me. It was very good news." In two years, he said, "I hope the economy will be better. Even if it's still tough, I will have more experience in a range of fields. And that will put me in a better position for a job. To have this experience is a great opportunity."
A boon to IPAM mentors One mentor in the program was ecstatic about getting the mathematical expertise she needs to compete for grants. Dr. Carrie Salafia, a perinatal pathologist, has her own company, Placental Analytics, in Larchmont, N.Y., that is researching the link between the placenta structure to fetal development, possible prenatal problems and adult health risks. An IPAM postdoc will work with scientists there to study the branching of blood vessels in placentas, applying math to the analysis.
"I am absolutely thrilled," said Dr. Salafia, who contributed half of the funding for the fellowship. "I don't think we would have been able to really pull this together otherwise. This has really galvanized our team. Now we have the critical mass of intellect and skills we need to move this project forward."
Salafia hopes the project will improve the lives of women and babies. "I have the very real expectation that significant advances are right around the corner."
