Evolution of the AIChE Faculty Candidate Poster Session

The “Meet the Faculty and Post-Doc Candidates” Poster Sessions will be held on Monday, Nov. 9 at the 2026 AIChE Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, MN. 

The AIChE Programming Committee was among the first to recognize the need for a dedicated forum to foster interaction between early-career researchers seeking academic positions and departments searching for new faculty members. With this goal, AIChE introduced a Faculty Candidate Poster Session at its Annual Meeting in 2001. Scheduled on the first day of the conference, this session allows prospective faculty candidates to present their research, facilitating direct engagement with faculty search committees and departmental representatives from universities across the U.S. and internationally.

Since its inception, the session has experienced significant growth, with participation increasing from approximately 100 to 430 candidates. Many academic search committees now use this session as a rapid screening venue, where departments can identify promising candidates and conduct informal preliminary interviews. For candidates, the session provides an opportunity to meet multiple search committees in a single setting and to establish personal connections that may lead to formal interviews later in the hiring cycle. Its overall success has inspired other professional societies to establish similar poster sessions.

History of the poster session

Over time, continuous improvements have been made based on participant feedback collected through surveys, direct communication with search committee members, and discussions with session co-chairs and AIChE staff. For example, the abstract submission deadline was extended to July 1 to accommodate late requests from participants. Additionally, abstracts were reorganized into two sections: (i) research interests and (ii) teaching interests aligning with faculty search needs.

In 2018, AIChE staff helped implement significant improvements by allowing participants to submit their résumés online in a secure system for free. Candidates could also enhance their profiles by including digital media, such as LinkedIn. All submitted CVs were integrated into AIChE’s CareerEngineer job board, where departments could browse the database by creating an AIChE account if they did not have one.

Additionally, many resources were developed to help candidates understand the academic hiring process and succeed in a faculty position. These resources are now hosted by AIChE at the Faculty Candidate Resource Center.

These changes have contributed to steady increases in participation, and interest has expanded beyond chemical engineering to include many other disciplines due to the breadth of research topics represented by the candidates. Although we have not formally tracked how many participants ultimately secure faculty positions, we typically receive 30–40 job advertisements, suggesting that only a small fraction of candidates obtain faculty roles. Opportunities remain for further improvements.

Ongoing developments

To better support diverse career pathways, the session title was revised in 2021 to include postdoctoral candidates. However, recruitment for postdoctoral positions differs significantly from that for faculty roles. Postdoctoral hiring practice is typically conducted through research centers or by individual investigators seeking candidates with specialized expertise. More importantly, there is no centralized or organized forum for sharing information about postdoctoral opportunities or candidates. For example, while AIChE has a Department Heads/Chairs forum — and we distribute solicitations through a listserv developed by David Silverstein during his time at the University of Kentucky — we rarely receive information about available postdoctoral positions. Several factors may contribute to the lack of response, including: (i) timing mismatches, such as funding cycles not aligning with conference schedules; (ii) difficulty reaching the appropriate audience; and (iii) the lack of a structured system to connect candidates with available opportunities.

Thus, there is a need to better connect candidates with faculty positions and postdoctoral opportunities by improving visibility and coordinating outreach across departments, faculty searches, and research groups. We believe that the session at the annual meeting should be viewed as the starting point of an ongoing career development cycle, not a one-time networking opportunity.

This article originally appeared in the Institute News section of the June 2026 issue of CEP. Members have access to complete issues online at aiche.org/cep.