Retirees as Scientific Consultants

Abstract

The immediate preretirement period is for many scientists a time of introspection, occasional melancholy, and planning for a postretirement career—preferably in some science-related activity, and preferably with pay. The authors of this book have both been down that path, so we can write about it as certified experts—or at least as professionals who have considered the available options and who have made choices about how to invest our time for the foreseeable future. We have both elected involvement in consulting activities, either intermittently (C.S.) or full-time (T.S.). We both have other science-related projects (such as writing this book on scientific consulting), and we both encounter scientists, active or retired, every day In addition to focused and structured interviews with consultants for the purposes of the book, we have talked with professionals of all ages about attitudes and options related to retirement. Once we got beyond the stock responses of “I’ m never going to retire” or “I’ m getting out just as soon as “I’m eligible,” we began to appreciate the true range of options available to the retiring scientist. We felt that a reasonable way to begin a chapter on retirees as consultants would be to position the consulting options within the larger spectrum of postretirement occupations.