"Whether or not a long-distance relationship is a part of a scientific couple's experience, most couples eventually seek permanent positions at the same institutions or in the same geographic regions. These types of job searches require that personal, professional, and financial compromises be made. 'Before even entering the job market,' says Susan Henry, dean of the Mellon College of Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, 'a couple has to sit down and assess the career goals of each individual.' She feels couples can benefit from adopting realistic strategies when determining the fates of their careers. 'Usually at the junior faculty level,' she says, 'the couple themselves have decided that one of them is going to look for the best job they can, and the other is going to be willing to take a research faculty position or a lectureship.'"

Lots of great resources for dual-science-career couples courtesy of physicists Laurie McNeil and Marc Sher.

"Physicists are increasingly faced with the 'two-body problem,' i.e. the difficulty of finding two professional jobs (possibly two physics jobs) in the same geographic location. The problem has a particularly acute impact on women, in part because 43% of married female physicists are married to other physicists, whereas only 6% of married male physicists have a physicist spouse."

"Shari Wilson considers whether professors are better off with partners who are also professors."