Inaugural RBHS Assistant Vice Chancellor of Postdoctoral Affairs

April 19, 2023

Dear Colleagues,

I am delighted to announce the appointment of Dr. Janet Alder as the inaugural Assistant Vice Chancellor of Postdoctoral Affairs. Dr. Alder has a long-standing interest in the career development of postdoctoral trainees in the biomedical and health sciences, and we are thrilled that she has agreed to accept this part-time position in addition to continuing her roles as assistant dean in SGS-BHS and as a research scientist. Dr. Alder will report to me and become an integral part of the RBHS Office of Research team.

Dr. Alder is Associate Professor in the Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Assistant Dean for Graduate Academic and Student Affairs in the School for Graduate Studies. She is highly regarded for her contributions to career development and mentoring of trainees both at Rutgers and at the national level.

Trained as a neuroscientist, Janet has been on the RWJMS faculty since 1999. She was the 2021 recipient of the RBHS Chancellor’s Distinguished Educator Award. Among her many other achievements, Janet has co-directed the NIH “Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training” (BEST)-funded Rutgers iJOBS program which serves over 1000 pre- and post-doctoral trainees across all New Jersey research universities. She also implemented Individual Development Plans, Responsible Conduct of Research and Communicating Science courses as well as mental health, mentoring, and grant writing workshops for biomedical trainees.

Janet joins us at a time when the national shortage in biomedical postdocs has made the competition for the best and brightest even more fierce. She brings a skill set and experience that will allow us to create a sense of community and satisfaction among our current postdocs, supporting their research activities and career aspirations while enhancing our research ecosystem. She will work in a collaborative fashion with the Rutgers Office of Postdoctoral Advancement and focus specifically on biomedical postdocs. We hope to move from the current siloed approach to postdoc recruitment to a more coordinated approach, making us much more competitive with our academic peers and, marketing this, we will be able to expand the pool of eligible postdocs for training grants.

We are excited to have such a dedicated faculty member for this important initiative.

Sincerely,

Kathleen W. Scotto, PhD
Vice Chancellor for Research and Research Training
Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences