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. )

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

A preliminary study launched in 2022 was led by postdoctoral researcher Dr. Ysabel Huaccallo-Aguilar.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 20, 2026

Daisuke Noto is a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 9, 2026

Harry Brown, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Sydney’s Heat and Health Research Centre, expressed frustration over the universal breaks in an op-ed in the journal Nature.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026

A month later, it said it confirmed misconduct, fired a postdoctoral researcher and ousted the dean of the university’s Institute of Translational Medicine.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026

As a result, none of my teachers had ever considered the possibility that I might do postdoctoral research with an X-ray crystallographer.

From "Double Helix" by James D. Watson