Government jobs and fellowships

Government science/lab jobs are those sponsored by government entities, organized at either the national or state level. See here for a Science magazine overview article. The below information is not a complete list, but hopefully can serve as a springboard for your own career investigations.

When we think about government jobs in science available to Biology PhDs, we might not consider those at the state level. Examples of these include the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene, which provides " clinical, water, environmental, and industrial analytical services, specialized public health procedures, reference testing, training, technical assistance and consultation for private and public health agencies". The Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory serves vets across the state. Other government agencies with state-level offices are APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service), which acts more in a diagnostic role, and ARS (Agriculture Research Service).

On the National level, the CDC is a major employer of biology PhDs. They're headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, but positions are both in the US as well as international. Their career page is here. The NIH (career website here, with the NIAID job listing page here) has labs in several places across the United States. Helpfully, the NIH has a 'what jobs to apply for' page outlining position classification and salaries. An applicable-but-not-straightforward website for the NSF is here.

For federal employers, job applications are done through usajobs.gov. There you can upload your resume and apply for a variety of positions. UW-Madison Letters and Science Career Services has a federal jobs website and a knowledgeable adviser with whom you can schedule an appointment to discuss federal jobs and how to apply for them, including going over resumes and various forms. This comes strongly recommended.

There are several fellowships available for newly minted Biology PhDs. CDC Post-doctoral Research Fellowships are outlined here. These include the Emerging Infectious Diseases Postdoc Lab research program, which is a 2 year program, though it is on hiatus for 2015-2016. Other related fellowships are though through the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL). Another is the ASM/CDC Post-doc research fellowship program, which is a 2 year-program for research done at one of the CDC national labs (the deadline is January 15th). The ASM post-doc professional development page is here, and offers a lot of various planning and awards information links.