Who pays top dollar?

Who pays top dollar? To the disappointment of postdocs, many institutions set their salaries according to the pay scale recommended by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or lower. Surprisingly, however, many government research centers reported higher postdoc salary caps than those in industry or academia, with the highest paid postdocs making twice the $51,552 paycheck recommended by the NIH in 2009 for those with 7 or more years of experience.

Written byKatherine Bagley

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To the disappointment of postdocs, many institutions set their salaries according to the pay scale recommended by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or lower. Surprisingly, however, many government research centers reported higher postdoc salary caps than those in industry or academia, with the highest paid postdocs making twice the $51,552 paycheck recommended by the NIH in 2009 for those with 7 or more years of experience.

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Argonne National Laboratory, for example, had the second highest postdoc salary maximum at $95,700; Sandia National Laboratories the fourth at $80,000. Some private institutions do even better. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, a private research institution, offered the highest ...

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Katherine Bagley
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Published In

March 2010

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