All Members Community

Hi All,

This was my first year joining ABRF and attending the annual meeting. There was a compensation survey link posted during one of the meeting's sessions, but the link gave a 404 error. Could someone please share the link for the survey. Additionally, is there a mechanism for the whole institute to participate and see the results? My institute's HR asked if this was possible and the information would be worthwhile for them.

Thanks,

Pavan

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Pavan Vedula
Managing Director - Imaging Shared Resource
The Wistar Institute
Philadelphia PA
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Hello Pavan,

Responding to you on behalf of the Career Development Committee who helped with the conduct of the first Compensation survey of ABRF membership in 2022.   We did take consultation and support in the development, administration, analysis and reporting of the data from a partner in the field. 

It was a successful first attempt and we fully intend to conduct another one in the coming year. 

To your question, many of our members have used the data from the last survey in working with their institutions. 

And as feedback from our last attempt, we have seen value in the institutional members engaging their HR departments in responding at the institutional level. 

 Not sure about the link, we do not have an active survey open at this point. 

Thank you for your questions and looking forward to being able to do the survey again.

Anitha Chennat

CDC Member

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Anitha Chennat
Associate Director, Biomedical Research Core Facilities
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor MI
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Google found this:
https://abrf.org/wp-content/uploads/ABRF-Compensation-Survey-Report-April-2023.pdf 
I know for a fact of a core director, one of my colleagues, who was making more than $250k in 2009.  He's still in the business, and you can be sure his salary has not decreased in the intervening years.  How many more relevant data points are missing from this survey?  I bet a lot; I bet a lot of people are not answering the survey.  And how do you measure a director's salary when they have multiple roles, for instance if they make $200k but only 35% of their effort is considered based on their role as a director of a core?  (in the case I site, 100% of effort was as a core co-director.)
Perhaps the median of this survey may not change much with more data points, but I find it difficult to accept that the data point I'm reporting as missing is an isolated one.  Furthermore, I doubt that at the low end, entry level really bottoms out at $50k.  (At the low end, this gets to an issue that ABRF has made huge progress in addressing, but remains outstanding: not representing people who are not on clear official leadership tracks.)
I also think that for a survey like this to be more useful, the data need to be sorted based on type of institution.  Do large wealthy medical schools pay in the same range as state universities?  How about biotech vs big pharma?

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Michael Cammer
Sr. Research Scientist
NYU School of Medicine Langone Medical Center
New York NY
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-22-2026 15:58
From: Anitha Chennat
Subject: Compensation Survey and Institute wide participation

Hello Pavan,

Responding to you on behalf of the Career Development Committee who helped with the conduct of the first Compensation survey of ABRF membership in 2022.   We did take consultation and support in the development, administration, analysis and reporting of the data from a partner in the field. 

It was a successful first attempt and we fully intend to conduct another one in the coming year. 

To your question, many of our members have used the data from the last survey in working with their institutions. 

And as feedback from our last attempt, we have seen value in the institutional members engaging their HR departments in responding at the institutional level. 

 Not sure about the link, we do not have an active survey open at this point. 

Thank you for your questions and looking forward to being able to do the survey again.

Anitha Chennat

CDC Member

------------------------------
Anitha Chennat
Associate Director, Biomedical Research Core Facilities
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor MI
------------------------------

Hello Michael,

Thank you for message.

One of the ABRF Strategy Task Forces is working on an updated compensation survey with exactly those goals in mind.

We plan to ask for Institution level responses for all roles within core facilities across geographic and technology areas.

The survey is due to launch in July.

Everyone,

You can help us produce more valuable results by identifying the right person in your organization to receive the survey invitation.

Please send their contact information to us at abrf@abrf.org.

Let us know if you have other suggestions for the survey.

Regards,

Ken


Original Message:
Sent: 4/23/2026 9:33:00 AM
From: Michael Cammer
Subject: RE: Compensation Survey and Institute wide participation

Google found this:
https://abrf.org/wp-content/uploads/ABRF-Compensation-Survey-Report-April-2023.pdf 
I know for a fact of a core director, one of my colleagues, who was making more than $250k in 2009.  He's still in the business, and you can be sure his salary has not decreased in the intervening years.  How many more relevant data points are missing from this survey?  I bet a lot; I bet a lot of people are not answering the survey.  And how do you measure a director's salary when they have multiple roles, for instance if they make $200k but only 35% of their effort is considered based on their role as a director of a core?  (in the case I site, 100% of effort was as a core co-director.)
Perhaps the median of this survey may not change much with more data points, but I find it difficult to accept that the data point I'm reporting as missing is an isolated one.  Furthermore, I doubt that at the low end, entry level really bottoms out at $50k.  (At the low end, this gets to an issue that ABRF has made huge progress in addressing, but remains outstanding: not representing people who are not on clear official leadership tracks.)
I also think that for a survey like this to be more useful, the data need to be sorted based on type of institution.  Do large wealthy medical schools pay in the same range as state universities?  How about biotech vs big pharma?

------------------------------
Michael Cammer
Sr. Research Scientist
NYU School of Medicine Langone Medical Center
New York NY
------------------------------