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

At first, postdoctoral researcher Olívia Soares Pereira thought the vehicle had come across a jellyfish.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2026

"This result changes how we think about neutrophils after stroke," said Shangjing Xin, lead scientist of the study and a postdoctoral fellow in the Segura Laboratory.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 4, 2026

The modeling was developed by first author Tahiry Rajaonarison, a postdoctoral researcher at New Mexico Tech who earned his Ph.D. at Virginia Tech while working in Stamps's lab.

From Science Daily ● Sep. 1, 2026

Cofnas works as a postdoctoral researcher at the university's department of philosophy and moral sciences, according to his website.

From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026

So I was not faced with the prospect of absorbing chemistry until I went to Copenhagen to do my postdoctoral research with the biochemist Herman Kalckar.

From "Double Helix" by James D. Watson