postdoctoral

American  

[pohst-dok-ter-uhl] / poʊstˈdɒk tər əl /

adjective

1. of or relating to study or professional work undertaken after the receipt of a doctorate.

   postdoctoral courses.

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postdoctoral British  

/ pəʊstˈdɒktərəl /

adjective

1. of, relating to, or designating studies, research, or professional work above the level of a doctorate

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Etymology

Origin of postdoctoral

1935–40; post- + doctoral ( def. )

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Explanation

Research or other work done after getting a PhD is postdoctoral. Your cousin must be pretty happy about the postdoctoral fellowship she got at the University of Hawaii. Surf's up! When you stay in school long enough to earn a doctorate degree (usually called a PhD or Doctor of Philosophy), you can describe the work, writing, and research you do as doctoral. It follows that related work done after that — but generally before getting a full-time academic job — is postdoctoral, since post- means "after." A postdoctoral student, for example, might work for a few years and teach some classes before pursuing a university teaching position.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

postdoctoral

Michael Cyrus Daugherty, then a postdoctoral fellow at NIST, had developed software for digitally unrolling CT scans of the "jelly rolls" found inside lithium-ion batteries.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 26, 2026

"Our observations reveal a powerful outflow that, according to our current understanding, shouldn't be there," says Krystian Ilkiewicz, a postdoctoral researcher at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center in Warsaw, Poland and study co-lead.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 25, 2026

Northwestern postdoctoral researcher Arthur Montanari and graduate student Pietro Zanin, both members of the Motter group, are the study's co-first authors.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 19, 2026

Lead author Claudio Hail carried out the research while he was a postdoctoral scholar in Atwater's Caltech lab.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 18, 2026

McKusick agreed, so he turned to one of his postdoctoral fellows, Susan Hsu, and said, “As soon as you get back to Baltimore, get this done.”

From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot

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