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1. Characterizing the landscape of plant science careers in the United States I: Government and private sector perspectives

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10375  

   Sidoti, Brian J. ; Walsh, Lisa L. ; Parsley, Kathryn M. ; Callis‐Duehl, Kristine ; Hove, Alisa A. ; Liu, Hong ; Uzcategui, Mia ; Ospina, David ; Bruce‐Opris, Hannah ; Gonzalez, Roxana ; et al ( May 2023 , PLANTS, PEOPLE, PLANET)

   Humans are dependent upon plants for oxygen, food, textiles, and medicines. Climate change and deforestation represent serious threats to our planet, causing significant disruptions to our ability to access and utilize these plant resources; this makes a botanically literate workforce and plant science careers more important than ever. Unfortunately, the current state of botanical career opportunities and training programs in the United States remains unclear. This study focuses on the current employment trends of government and private sector botanists and what skills future plant scientists will need to be successful in these careers.

   Plant science plays a crucial role in our society and in ongoing efforts to address many global challenges, including food insecurity and climate change. Yet, despite a predicted increase in plant science career opportunities in the United States, the botanical career landscape outside of academia is not well understood.

   To further our understanding of the training required for non‐academic botanical careers, the botanical sub‐disciplines used on the job, and career challenges faced by plant scientists, we surveyed 61 scientists working in government and 59 scientists working in the private sector in the United States.

   In both career sectors, > 80% of survey participants reported recent hires at the bachelor's degree level. New personnel with master's degrees were more commonly reported in the government sector (95%) than in the private sector (69%). Most plant scientists working in government reported a focus on plant ecology and resource management. By contrast, most industry/non‐profit work involved horticulture and biotechnology, with some specific skills spanning both sectors. Notably, one prediction made nearly a decade ago appears to be manifesting: plant scientists seem to be retiring more quickly than they are being replaced. Survey respondents reported that attempts to hire full‐time staff are met with obstacles, including insufficient funding. Plant science professionals in both career sectors emphasized their routine use of botanical skills developed as students, highlighting the need for effective training at the undergraduate level.

   We discuss the implications of these findings and present several recommendations for preparing future generations of plant scientists and increasing the scientific community's botanical capacity.

    

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2. Characterizing the landscape of plant science careers in the United States II: Academic perspectives

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10374  

   Walsh, Lisa L. ; Parsley, Kathryn M. ; Sidoti, Brian J. ; Callis‐Duehl, Kristine ; Hove, Alisa A. ; Liu, Hong ; Bruce‐Opris, Hannah ; Gonzalez, Roxana ; Ospina, David ; Uzcategui, Mia ; et al ( May 2023 , PLANTS, PEOPLE, PLANET)

   Botanical careers are more important than ever, given that environmental challenges such as climate change and deforestation threaten plants daily and because plants contribute to solutions to these problems. Plants act as our sources of food, medicine, textiles, and oxygen, which means finding ways to mitigate these environmental challenges is crucial. Despite this, little is known about what career opportunities exist for botanists outside of academia and how well academia is training graduate students for these careers. This study centers on the current state of academic botanical careers and how well students completing post‐baccalaureate degrees (herein referred to as graduate students) are being prepared to fill careers within the botanical workforce.

   Plant science plays a crucial role in our society and in ongoing efforts to address many global challenges, including food insecurity and climate change. Despite a predicted increase in botanical career opportunities, little is known about how well academia is training graduate students for careers outside of academia.

   To further our understanding of the current state of academic training for botanical careers, we surveyed 85 faculty and 40 graduate students working in academia in the plant sciences in the United States.

   We found that the top challenges to university professors in academia are lack of support staff and funding, whereas students completing their post‐baccalaureate degrees cited finances and lack of supportive mentoring as their top challenges. Despite the fact that most graduate students surveyed wanted a career at a research‐intensive university, many botanists in academia are retiring without being replaced by more botanists. Faculty expertise is also misaligned with needs from industry and government employers, causing challenges to training graduate students for these careers outside of academia. Although our data point to a lack of career opportunities within academia, we also note that current graduate student education still emphasizes such careers and is not properly preparing graduate students for the careers they are more likely to obtain within the private and government sectors.

   We discuss the implications of these findings and present several recommendations for preparing future generations of plant scientists for more realistic career trajectories.

    

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3. Writing Attitudes and Career Trajectories of Domestic and International Students in the United States

   Zerbe, E. ; Berdanier, C.G.P. ( January 2020 , IJEE International Journal of Engineering Education)

   Graduate engineering students are rarely taught to write in formal disciplinary coursework, but it is an essential skill required for success in industry and academic careers. This study builds on existing work exploring doctoral writing practices, processes, and attitudes, expanding it into the disciplinary context of engineering. Engineering traditionally offers few opportunities for students to practice or develop academic writing in coursework, despite the fact that most academic milestones for graduate students are based on writing. Grounded in Academic Literacies Theory, this paper seeks to determine how engineering graduate students’ writing attitudes affect their career trajectories. This study surveyed N = 621 engineering graduate students at ten research-intensive universities in the United States using several previously established scales. These data were analyzed using Pearson correlations and Welch’s t test methods to answer the research questions. Results indicate that while most students consider writing to be a knowledge transforming activity, they overwhelmingly struggle with procrastination, perfectionism, and low-writing self-efficacy. Further, strong writing attitudes are linked statistically with the likelihood to pursue a broader set of future careers after graduate school, indicating that writing may be an invisible mediator for broadening participation in all sectors of engineering. 

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4. The career outlook of engineering PhDs : Influence of postdoctoral research positions on early career salaries and the attainment of tenure‐track faculty positions

   https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20416  

   Main, Joyce B. ; Wang, Yanbing ; Tan, Li ( September 2021 , Journal of Engineering Education)

   The number of engineering PhDs pursuing postdoctoral research scholar (postdoc) positions has steadily increased in the last 30 years. Postdoc positions are commonly thought of as a step toward academic careers. However, engineering PhDs are more likely to work in industry, which leaves open the question of the role of postdocs in the career trajectories of engineering PhDs.

   This study examines the factors associated with attainment of postdocs. It also identifies the influence of postdocs on attainment of tenure‐track faculty positions and early career salaries.

   Super's “life span, life space” theory informs the analytical approach. Descriptive and regression analyses, and propensity score matching, are conducted using a nationally representative sample of engineering PhDs from the 1993–2013 National Science Foundation Survey of Doctorate Recipients data set merged with the 1985–2013 Survey of Earned Doctorates.

   Engineering PhDs primarily funded by research assistantships and who graduated from a doctoral program with higher‐ranked research activities and greater proportions of previous cohorts pursuing postdocs are more likely to attain postdoc positions. Among engineering PhDs, postdoctoral scholars are more likely than PhDs in nonacademic positions to attain tenure‐track faculty positions. Early career average salaries are relatively similar between postdoctoral scholars and PhDs without postdoc experiences working in the academic sector.

   Postdoctoral research positions can provide a viable pathway toward careers in the academic sector. Engineering doctoral programs can potentially apply research findings toward student career development and preparation, and engineering students and PhDs can leverage the career outlook information for decision‐making and career preparation.

    

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5. Correlations between graduate student writing concepts and processes and certainty of career trajectories

   https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2018.8658678  

   Berdanier, Catherine G.P. ; Zerbe, Ellen ( October 2018 , 2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE))

   At the graduate level, most milestones are based on the ability to write for an academic audience, whether that be for dissertation proposals, publications, or funding opportunities. Writing scholars often discuss the process by which graduate students learn to join their academic “discourse communities” through academic literacies theory. Graduate attrition researchers relate the feeling of belonging with persistence in doctoral programs; however, there has not to date been any research that directly studies engineering writing attitudes and perceptions with student career trajectories, persistence, or attrition. To meet this need, this paper presents research from a larger study analyzing graduate level engineering writing and attrition. The explicit objective of this paper is to present quantitative data relating current graduate engineering students' attitudes, processes, and concepts of academic writing with the certainty of their career trajectory. Five scales measuring aspects of writing were deployed to engineering programs at ten research intensive universities across the United States, with a final total of n=621 graduate student respondents that represent early-career, mid-career, and late-career stages of the graduate timeline. Results indicate that graduate student processes and conceptions of engineering writing correlate with the likelihood of pursuing careers in various engineering sectors after completing their graduate degree programs. 

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