Postdoc Teaching and Outreach Committee
About Us
The teaching committee is charged with providing and publicizing opportunities for Stanford postdocs to teach and communicate science. The committee promotes teaching, mentoring, and outreach as key components of any career. We collaborate with the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs (OPA) to make sure you are recognized for the teaching and mentoring you do and to provide you with resources and opportunities to teach and communicate research.
Why Teach?
Whether you’re considering becoming a faculty member at a research-focused institution or looking to leave academia for something new, communication will be vital to your career development. Teaching experience is increasingly desired in the academic world and beyond.
Beyond adding value to your resume, teaching can be exciting, fun and incredibly rewarding. Explaining your research project to people outside your field can help you focus on the big picture and distill your research to a few core ideas. This ability not only helps you to communicate with non-specialists, but will also help hone your grant-writing skills and allow you to effectively present your data to a wider audience at conferences. You can also inspire the next generation of budding scientists.
Where can I find resources and opportunities?
If you are interested in gaining teaching experience or pedagogy, here’s your launch pad:
- Sign up for the postdoc teaching email listserve: pd_teaching_programs@lists.stanford.edu
- Register for the Postdoc Teaching Certificate
- Peruse this non-exhaustive list of resource links to outreach, teaching, and pedagogy opportunities
What are we working on?
- Promote the new Teaching Certificate offered by the OPA.
- Connect postdocs to present their research at Nightlife @ California Academy of Sciences.
- Providing science-based learning activities for postdoc and their families at “Bring your Kids to Work” and “Saturday Science Picnic” days.
- Publicize adjunct & instructor positions at various local colleges and universities.
- Publicize outreach opportunities by external groups locally and internationally.
- Subsidized field trips to local museums
Check out our blog for all the fun activities we have been doing.
SURPAS Teaching and Outreach Committee
Chair: Alaa Youssef
