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A Message from the Vice President of Research

Postdoctoral scholars make remarkable contributions to Northwestern across a wide range of disciplines. Your great dedication, creativity, and passionate pursuit of knowledge advances your fields, leads to new fundamental understandings and translational impact, and elevates the University’s reputation as one of the world’s eminent academic research institutions.

While it is my privilege during National Postdoc Appreciation Week to recognize the critical role you all play at Northwestern, the truth is postdocs are an invaluable part of our research enterprise every day, throughout the year.

And what a year it has been. Since March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has continuously tested our resilience, our adaptability, our commitment, and our innovation. Despite the challenges, Northwestern has flourished. We have continued to advance our important work and make a profound positive difference.

Our success would be impossible without you, our amazing postdoctoral community.

Many of you have remained active on campus throughout the pandemic — and some of you were among the first to return to our physical research spaces during our summer 2020 phased transition back to campus. Some of you work in laboratories; others do not. But you all have played a vital part in keeping the University’s research engine operating. And not just operating, but thriving.  

My colleagues and I in the Office for Research are incredibly proud of you and extremely grateful for everything you do to cultivate research excellence throughout this University. Thank you, this week and every day!

 

Milan Mrksich
Vice President for Research