You've decided to retire. Depending on your organization's rules, you will have to file paperwork by a certain deadline and inform your supervisor or department chair. But deciding when to make your decision to retire publicly known is less straight-forward. Should you wait until the last minute? Do you drop hints as much as a year before? Do you announce...

We are talking about retirement in this series of posts. Once your contemporaries begin retiring, you will begin wondering if it's time for you too to put down the pipette and hang up the lab coat (or whatever the equivalent is in your specialty). In the last post, I covered how to determine if you are ready to stop working. In this post, let's explore...

Visitors who have stumbled upon this website through a Google search for retirement information may be flummoxed at the question posed in the title of this post. Is she kidding? Who doesn't want to stop working? Well, the answer is: those people who love their work. And scientists often adore doing their research—thinking of an important question, designing...

In this series of posts, I'm talking about retirement. In the next few posts, I'll consider some questions that a scientist contemplating retirement needs to answer. Even if you are early- or mid-career, it's important to ponder these questions because they will help you plan ahead for this important stage in your life. Science is unique, I think,...

What do you think when you hear that a scientist has retired? Do you assume that they're no longer contributing to science or to society? Do you imagine them sitting in a rocking chair, staring out the window, and waiting for their pension check? Heading to the nursing home? Do you wonder what retired scientists do all day? Do you wonder what you'll...

Samantha was nervous as she looked out at the audience. She thanked the organizer of the symposium and began her talk. Nothing in her delivery or sound of her voice gave away the fact that she was not only uncomfortable being on stage but was uncertain about how her paper would be received. She had carefully practiced her talk and so was able to articulate...