Janet Joy, a senior program officer at the National Research Council (NRC) since 1995, says she has no plans to return to the bench either. Before heading to work at the NRC, she was a neuroscientist at the National Institute of Mental Health. Can you go back? I asked her. "No. I'm seven years out and I still give the same answer."
For Joy and others, the only reentry status they see for themselves would be as postdoctoral trainees, because they would need to refresh their knowledge. After finding a highly satisfying niche for herself at NRC, Joy says, "I have no desire to go back to that status."
Some practical problems also prevent people from returning to research. With each passing year, a former scientist moves further from publishing and funding networks. New discoveries open new technologies. "Science moves very quickly," says Maria Betty, a bioinformatics scientist for Wyeth ...
