Open Positions at SURPAS

June 7, 2025

🗳️ Elections for SURPAS Leadership Team! 🌟

Want to shape and improve the postdoc experience at Stanford? We’re holding elections for our Leadership Team in July and opening up Council Member and Committee Co-Chair positions on a rolling basis. 

🔗 Nominate yourself here! Fill out the form to learn more and show your interest.

Have ideas to strengthen postdoc support? Want to lead SURPAS initiatives and foster community? We need you! 🙌

JOIN US:

Council Member: SURPAS council is made up of regular postdoc volunteers to organize events and committees. Council meetings are held once a month to raise issues, discuss, and brainstorm together, as well as to socialize and meet with fellow postdoctoral colleagues.

Leadership Team

• Co-Chair: As Co-Chair of SURPAS, you and your Co-Chair counterpart are responsible for representing all postdocs at SURPAS meetings, meetings with the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, Faculty Senate meetings, etc. You also organize and lead the council meetings. To accomplish this, you work closely with the SURPAS leadership team and council, and it’s your job to ensure operations run smoothly and the teams are working well.
• Advocacy Coordinator: In many ways, the advocacy coordinator is a connector position, creating bridges within the council and leadership team, as well as between postdocs and the University at large. This translates to staying up to date with issues postdocs are facing, as well as with the new initiatives and plans around the university. Along with the co-chairs, the advocacy coordinator works closely with the OPA, VPGE, and other offices around campus to ensure that postdoc voices are represented and taken into account. As part of this effort, the advocacy coordinator also oversees the activity of the SURPAS committees, with help from the rest of the leadership board.
• Events Coordinator: You will coordinate all the committees/associations’ events and maintain the shared calendar. You will be the point of contact if they need help organizing an event and the Liaison with the OPA or other institutions for more significant events. It is an excellent opportunity to meet many people at Stanford or even other universities, and you get to participate in the leadership meeting, where you will learn a lot about what is happening at Stanford!
• Communications Director: You will be the point person for all communication within the SURPAS council and from SURPAS to the general postdoctoral population. You will oversee three active listservs and a slack channel by subscribing to new postdocs and tending to moderator requests. You will also be the virtual voice of SURPAS, drafting and formatting email announcements about upcoming meetings and events and responding to general inquiries. If you are quick of wit and nimble of fingers… this job is for you!
• Operations Manager: Your job is to run the internal operations of SURPAS smoothly. You schedule the council meetings, set the agenda for them in consultation with co-chairs and the Leadership, take minutes, and keep track of meeting attendance. You also keep track of the election cycles of each council member, plan and run elections for council members and leadership seats (including recruiting new interested postdocs), and maintain records of council and committee members. I would also like to let you know that you are also in charge of communicating the above items to the council members.
• Financial Officer: The Financial Officer is familiar with accounting procedures and policies, keeps all financial records of SURPAS, prepares an annual budget, and advises members on financial matters and proceeds payments or reimbursements.
• Social Media Manager: The Social Media Manager and Webmaster oversee SURPAS’ online presence. Managing our online platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and website, your role is to keep SURPAS’ activities and achievements readily accessible to both individuals at Stanford as well as those across the US and the world and to provide a friendly and welcoming first point of contact for new arrivals to Stanford. Experience with managing social media is not required, nor is any coding experience.
• Community Engagement Liaison: The Liaison helps make resources of SURPAS available to all Stanford Postdocs. The Liaison works with Postdocs interested in working with SURPAS as a sponsor or mentor to help them meet all applicable rules and regulations.

SURPAS Committee Co-chair positions:

• Housing and Transportation: Collect information, raise awareness, and find solutions to housing and commuting issues that affect the Stanford postdoctoral community.
• Social: Foster a social life for postdocs here at Stanford.
• Long Range Planning: Update the 2023 publicly accessible report detailing the positive aspects of being a postdoc at Stanford, as well as where we would like to see change.
• Teaching and Outreach: Provide and publicize opportunities for Stanford postdocs to teach and communicate science.
• AIMS: Provide guidance and foster a supportive network for postdocs interested in entrepreneurial endeavors.