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The labs don't employ many life scientists compared to physics and engineering doctorates. The article is focused on biology. Not that we don't generally need

The labs don't employ many life scientists compared to physics and engineering doctorates. The article is focused on biology. Not that we don't generally need more staff scientists, but the national labs are probably the best gig along those lines available, and due to their mission, they are very focused on CS/Engineering /Physics In my limited experience, the life sciences are much more depressed in terms of wages.

dekhn 9y ago
I was a staff scientists at a national lab (titled "Computer Scientist", but at the time, I was a biologist that used computers). We had plenty of people in LS (there are several divisions dedicated to biology). It grew a ton over the past few decades (true for all the labs). There is a modest difference in pay between a Staff Scientist in the Life Sciences Division and a Computer Scientist (doing life sciences) in the Computational division, but that's mainly explained by the fact that we had to compete with Silicon Valley to hire. Also, both CS and life sciences aren't hard funded like physics is (at least at LBL, dunno about others). I suppose what I'm saying supports you, in that I had to specifically be titled CS to get the higher salary. I would agree that in general, life sciences wages are depressed, but then, there are far more people in life sciences than CS, but much more demand for CS, and CS people bring in more dollars/hour (in terms of company revenue in the case of a biotech vs. a SV computer company). You can't fix that without making structural changes.
sndean 9y ago
I'm a life scientist (I guess?) at a national lab. And yeah, even the biology is very focused toward CS/Eng/Physics. There's lots of unusual (at least relative to academia) collaborations, like biologists working with plasma physicists, deep learning researchers, material scientists, etc. Everyone here is paid equally, and pretty well (again, relative to academia).

dekhn 9y ago

I was a staff scientists at a national lab (titled "Computer Scientist", but at the time, I was a biologist that used computers). We had plenty of people in LS (there are several divisions dedicated to biology). It grew a ton over the past few decades (true for all the labs). There is a modest difference in pay between a Staff Scientist in the Life Sciences Division and a Computer Scientist (doing life sciences) in the Computational division, but that's mainly explained by the fact that we had to compete with Silicon Valley to hire. Also, both CS and life sciences aren't hard funded like physics is (at least at LBL, dunno about others). I suppose what I'm saying supports you, in that I had to specifically be titled CS to get the higher salary. I would agree that in general, life sciences wages are depressed, but then, there are far more people in life sciences than CS, but much more demand for CS, and CS people bring in more dollars/hour (in terms of company revenue in the case of a biotech vs. a SV computer company). You can't fix that without making structural changes.

sndean 9y ago

I'm a life scientist (I guess?) at a national lab. And yeah, even the biology is very focused toward CS/Eng/Physics. There's lots of unusual (at least relative to academia) collaborations, like biologists working with plasma physicists, deep learning researchers, material scientists, etc. Everyone here is paid equally, and pretty well (again, relative to academia).