Includes vita."Increasingly, the doctorate is no longer the terminal point for advanced education in the United States. Especially in the sciences, significant numbers of doctoral recipients seek temporary positions where they may augment their education and experience in research before accepting the more permanent faculty appointment. Generically, these persons are referred to as "postdoctoral students." The postdoctoral is not particularly easy to describe. In the past, postdoctoral students were concentrated in a few very prestigious universities. In recent years, however, they are found not only in a somewhat wider range of universities but in a number of non-academic institutions. The postdoctoral usually has been granted the Ph.D. degree although some are post-MD's or post-DVM's. The person with the Ph.D. is most often a young natural scientist who has recently finished his doctoral dissertation. He has completed his formal education but feels that he can benefit from continuing his research for a while under an experienced mentor--often a colleague of his dissertation adviser at another institution. More rarely are these persons in the social sciences or humanities."--Page 1.Includes bibliographical references
