This summer I'm starting a postdoc at CalTech! I'm working with the roboticist/control theorist Aaron Ames on using category theory to study stability of dynamical systems.
I got verbal confirmation a month ago, but I've been holding back on saying anything until I got bureaucratic confirmation.
@Joemoeller As a former Caltech postoc, congratulations.
Not sure if attitudes have changed from a couple decades ago, but beware of departments using you for their research and then dropping you on the floor - your career progress should be in the back of your head all the time. Write papers that YOU think are worthwhile (even if your collaborator/s don't think so). Attend conferences that are good for YOU (even if they're only marginally related to your 'official' research area). Make contacts that help YOUR networking (even if they don't help progress your project). You'll also do plenty of the other kind, ideally a lot of them. Ideally progressing your project/s and your career are symbiotic. But it's easy to lose sight of your own future in the hubbub and academic folks aren't the best managers that will look out for you...
@SvenGeier I appreciate this. The stuff I'm hired to do is certainly "related, though tangentially" to what I would do if I had total autonomy. I get the sense that Aaron will be pretty nice, but I'll definitely be watching out for myself at the same time. I certainly have some half-written papers lined up to finish in between.
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