For studying plants, postdocs report, small institutions devoted to the topic are the way to go. The Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) in Ithaca, New York and the Danforth Center in St. Louis, Missouri ranked Nos. 12 and 14, respectively, in this year's survey.
At BTI, a trainee-run postgraduate society mediates relations between postdocs and the administration. "They are given real responsibility and real money to do things," says BTI President David Stern, like offering seminars on preparing a CV and setting up collaborations. Danforth's equivalent is the Society of Fellows, which organizes monthly seminars and lunches for postdocs.
The strong "infrastructure of staff and equipment" at BTI lets postdocs focus on their experiments, says postdoc Tom Bollenbach. The institute provides fully staffed media prep, glasswashing, and greenhouse facilities, and administrative assistants are available to help postdocs with grant applications. Postdocs can also take advantage of classes and library resources at ...
