The Berkeley Science Fellows Program: On campus professional development opportunity for postdocs

Mission

The mission of the program is two-pronged‐ 1.to provide career transition opportunities to postdocs by helping them experience working with startups; 2. Helping startups solve scientific problems and reach their milestones while being incubated on campus.

Our team

Naresh Sunkara, Evangelia Vamvaka, Eduardo González Grandío, Ariani Wartenberg, and Gaia Andreoletti

Process

The core function of the Berkeley Science Fellows Program is to connect postdoctoral researchers with startups in the UC Berkeley entrepreneurial community. This will provide valuable real world working experience to postdocs while helping the startups benefit from the scientific expertise of the postdocs.

Berkeley Science Fellows will offer their advice to startups to solve specific scientific challenges including product development, process trouble shooting, grant writing/reviews, experimental data analysis, and presentations, to participate in discussions in brainstorming sessions to develop start up ideas.

The Berkeley Science Fellows Program will be responsible for recruiting postdocs (after an interview) and present them to startups at SkyDeck. Science Fellows will be given an opportunity to select the startup they would like to work with as well.

Qualification: Candidates must be a postdoc at UC Berkeley to be eligible to participate.

Time Commitment

It is understood that postdocs have a primary commitment to their research at UC Berkeley.  Science Fellows will need to commit 4-5 hours a week to assist the startup. The hours are flexible and may include evenings and weekends. Please note that the Science Fellows are not compensated for their volunteer assistance.

Because postdocs will gain valuable experiences while working in a fast paced startup environment, the selected postdocs are expected to deliver on their agreed-upon time commitments. To this regard, the Science Fellows will be intermittently contacted by the Program leads to assure that all commitments are being met.  Additionally, there will be monthly participant check-ins to solicit feedback to improve the Berkeley Science Fellows Program. 

Benefits to postdocs

- Gain experience working with startups.

- Get exposure to potential employment opportunities

- Add work experience to your resume

- Receive a letter of recommendation from a startup

- Serve on the Science Fellows Advisory Board (after completion of internship)

- Receive satisfaction of helping a startup succeed

Benefits to startups

- Access to world class talent (free of cost)

- Future Employee pipeline

- Help with troubleshooting specific problems

- Help with grants (review/write)

This is an unpaid (volunteer) program.

Please use this link to register as a Science Fellow: https://goo.gl/forms/WYMAGEsyaHK8TTzU2

If you are a startups trying to recruit postdocs as Science Fellows, use the link below to register:

https://goo.gl/forms/z39aDOotcfjmFW8z2