Hi docseuss,
So I contacted 5 PIs and got mostly positive responses (3/5 wanted to talk further). I intend to start my postbac with one of those PIs in the summer, hopefully around June/July. Regarding timing, I don't think there's a "good time" per se, as postbacs start year round (though start time is concentrated in the May - October range, from my understanding). The PI that wants to wait until late September/October to decide might be waiting because that's when a spot will open up in her lab? Alternatively, she might not expect to have funding for a postbac until the next fiscal year (which starts in, um, August, I think? Ha, don't quote me on that). From my experience, most investigators should have a good sense already of whether they'll have postbac spots opening up in the summer and, if so, when those spots will open up.
Anyway, some advice I have regarding contacting investigators:
1. Ask your current PI (if you're in a lab now) for suggestions of people to contact at the NIH. This is especially (though not only) useful if you want to stay in the same field as your undergrad research.
2. Look at the programs from the last couple of postbac poster days (see
https://www.training.nih.gov/assets/Complete_2014_Postbac_Poster_Day_Program.pdf for the 2014 program). This allows you to skim titles for cool-sounding project, and also allows you to see (at least some of) the investigators that accepted postbacs over the last couple of years. It's important to note that some investigators just have a policy of not accepting postbacs, period
3. When you're contacting individual investigators, make sure to skim over one or two of their recent papers & include a few sentences about why you're interested in that lab specifically. Also, talk about your research background (e.g. briefly and intelligently summarize your project, talk about techniques you learned) and, as I'm sure you know, include your CV.
I hope that helped!
