This fall the Simons Foundation initiated an interim Simons Postdoctoral Fellows Program that will support a total of 68 postdoctoral positions at 46 universities. These will be three-year positions in Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, starting in the academic years 2010 and 2011, and two-year postdoctoral positions in Theoretical Computer Science starting in 2010, 2011, and 2012. The goal of the Fellows Program is to provide the highest quality postdoctoral training to a group of the most promising new PhDs. Therefore the Fellowships are restricted to candidates who receive the PhD in the academic year before they would become Simons Fellows.  Applicants should not contact the Simons Foundation, but should answer advertisements for positions placed by the individual universities.

Origin and Implementation

Both University endowments and state funding have suffered badly in the recent economic downturn, leading to drastic cuts in the universities hiring of postdocs. This has reduced the chance for even very strong candidates to be postdocs at the most exciting programs. Since the experience of the postdoc years is formative, and there is no substitute for being part of a dynamic scientific environment at this stage of a scientist's development, this instability in the job market is very damaging. The Simons Foundation created the Postdoctoral Fellows Program to fund new postdoctoral positions in excellent environments, to help stabilize the postdoctoral market and to encourage talented young scientists to stay in research.

The urgency of the program affected its implementation. To make it possible to support postdocs graduating in June 2010, the Simons Foundation decided to delegate the choice of Fellows in this interim program to the host universities. Since we did not have time to solicit and review a round of applications from universities before the hiring season, we convened small committees in each of the three fields and charged them with selecting the universities that would be offered the opportunity to choose and host one or two Simons Postdoctoral Fellows. We chose universities for the quality of the faculty and the experience that they could offer the Fellows; in sum, their ability to attract and nurture the strongest new PhDs. 

For simplicity, all 68 positions involved in this program were allocated at once. The universities chosen were notified in early November of 2009 so that they would have time to recruit excellent candidates.

Mentoring

The quality of mentoring received by a postdoc is of great importance, and the primary responsibility for this falls on the host departments. However, effective mentoring is hard to formalize. Many, perhaps most postdocs who might become Simons Fellow already have their own networks of junior colleagues and senior advisors, and do not require or wish any formal mentoring structure. For others a structure can be very helpful. We have asked the host departments to make sure that, in each case, a senior scientist is responsible for providing the mentoring a particular postdoc needs, from settling in at the beginning of the postdoctoral period through the search for a second position.

Gathering of the Fellows

All Fellows starting their appointments in a given year will be invited to a meeting hosted by the Simons Foundation. This gathering will include a broad scientific program as well as a chance to get to know other Fellows.

Future Programs

Although the current Postdoctoral Fellows program is of an interim nature, the Simons Foundation plans to make a major long-term investment in supporting basic research in the MPS disciplines, likely beginning with the theoretical sciences radiating from Mathematics. The Foundation has begun an organized process of collecting advice and suggestions on how to make this investment as efficient as possible. A new postdoctoral program may or may not be part of such a long-term investment. A number of different program types are under consideration. We welcome written suggestions on what categories of activity would be most valuable to the community. Please send suggestions to Meghan Criswell mcriswell@simonsfoundation.org.