Is your Ph.D. nearing completion, leaving you contemplating your next career move? These postdoctoral fellowships offer lots of opportunities for researchers taking an interdisciplinary approach to their work. You could work as a fellow at schools including Harvard, Dartmouth, and Princeton, study intellectual and cultural history at the Warburg Institute in London, or complete a project anywhere in the world through the Fulbright program. If one of these programs seems exciting to you, make sure to bookmark it to your ProFellow account!
Berkman Center for Internet & Society Fellows
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University welcomes an interdisciplinary and diverse community of academics and practitioners to join the Center as fellows in its mission to engage the challenges and opportunities of cyberspace. Each Berkman fellow develops and coordinates their fellowship work plan with the Center’s directors and staff. Fellowship terms typically run the course of the academic year. Most Berkman fellows work out of the greater Boston area and spend a significant amount of time at the Berkman Center. Stipends and all other administrative determinations are made on case-by-case basis.
Frances A. Yates Long-Term Postdoctoral Fellowships in Intellectual and Cultural History
The Warburg Institute is renowned across the world for the interdisciplinary study of cultural and intellectual history, particularly the role of images in culture. It is dedicated to research on the history of ideas, the dissemination and transformations of texts, ideas and images in society, and the relationship between images, art and their texts and subtexts. Fellows’ interests may lie in any aspect of cultural and intellectual history but preference will be given to those whose work is concerned with those areas of the medieval and Renaissance encyclopedia of knowledge. The fellowship is for 9 months and includes a stipend of £ 30,512.
FSCIS Visiting Junior Scholar Fellowship
The France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies (FSCIS) Visiting Junior Scholar Fellowship provides funding up to $7,000 for a project of 2-4 months. Available to (1) Scholars who have completed a PhD no more than three years from the date of applying for the fellowship and who hold a tenure-track/permanent (rather than post-doctoral) position. These may be Stanford-based scholars seeking a research visit at a French institution or scholars based in a French institution seeking a research visit at Stanford, and (2) Postdoctoral students. These may be Stanford-based postdocs seeking a research visit at a French institution or postdocs based in a French-institution seeking a research visit at Stanford.
Fulbright Global Scholar Award
The Fulbright Global Scholar Award allows U.S. academics and professionals to engage in multi-country, trans-regional projects. As a truly worldwide award, U.S. scholars will be able to propose research or combined teaching/research activity in two to three countries with flexible schedule options; trips can be conducted within one academic year or spread over two consecutive years. Projects are welcome in all disciplines, as well as those with an interdisciplinary focus. Minimum length of the total grant is 3 months and the maximum is 6 months.
Interdisciplinary Research Leaders
Fellows in this national leadership development program are researchers and community partners working together in three-person teams. Some are advancing existing projects; others represent new and unexpected collaborations that bring many perspectives to a critical issue. Individuals must apply as part of a team of three—two researchers and one community partner (teams can be newly formed or already existing). Researchers must have a terminal degree (PhD, MD, DrPH) or a master’s degree with extensive professional experience. The time commitment is approximately one day per week–approximately 20% FTE — for three years. To support the fellows’ time to participate in the program, each fellow will receive financial support of $25,000 per person for each year of the three-year program.
Jacobs Foundation Research Fellowship Program
Jacobs Foundation Research Fellowships support highly talented and innovative young scholars and mid-career researchers working on child and youth development as they advance their research, which will improve the development and living conditions of children and youth. Scholars who engage in interdisciplinary work on individual development and learning of children and youth, and who seek to combine genetic, epigenetic, neurobiological, behavioral and social levels of analysis, are particularly encouraged to apply. Grants support the fellow for 3 years and additional workshops and networking opportunities are available.
Killam Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
The goal of the Killam Postdoctoral Research Fellowships program is to bring outstanding scholars from around the world to the University of British Columbia in order to engage in innovative research that will enhance interdisciplinary collaborations and help establish them in leadership positions in the academic and wider community. Applicants must have completed all requirements of their PhD no more than 24 months prior to the anticipated fellowship start date. Fellows receive an annual stipend of $50,000 for a maximum of two years plus a travel and research allowance of $4,000 over two years.
Linda Hall Library Fellowships
Fellowships up to $4,200 per month will assist pre- and post-doctoral scholars in financing a research visit to the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City. Residential Fellowships are offered for 1-9 months and support research and history projects in science, engineering, and technology or in interdisciplinary topics that link science or technology to the broader culture. Linda Hall is also offering an 80/20 Fellowship to help prepare graduate students for diverse career possibilities within and outside the academy. A pre-doctoral fellow can spend 80 percent of the time pursuing dissertation-related research in the Library’s collections and 20 percent gaining valuable career-related skills by planning, curating, and installing an exhibition based on the fellow’s research and the Library’s holdings.
Miller Research Fellowship
The Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science at UC Berkeley invites department chairs, faculty advisors, professors and research scientists at institutions around the world to submit online nominations for Miller Research Fellowships. The Miller Institute seeks to discover and encourage talented researchers, and to provide them with the opportunity to pursue their research on the Berkeley campus. Miller Research Fellowships are intended for scientists who have recently been awarded, or who are about to be awarded, the doctoral degree to pursue a topic in basic sciences through interdisciplinary research. These 3-year fellowships offer an annual salary of $65K.
Neukom Fellows at Dartmouth College
Neukom Fellows are interdisciplinary positions for recent PhDs, DMAs, or MFAs whose research interests or practice cuts across traditional disciplinary boundaries, and has some computational component, whether it be a framing concept for intellectual exploration or an explicit part of the work that is pursued. Fellows will be mentored by faculty in two departments at Dartmouth College, take up residence in one department, and will teach one seminar course each year on a subject of their interest. The fellowship is for 2 years with options to renew for a third and the stipend is $60,000/year plus additional research resources.
Omidyar Fellowship at the Santa Fe Institute
The Omidyar Fellowship at the Santa Fe Institute is unique among postdoctoral appointments. The fellowship offers transdisciplinary collaboration with leading researchers worldwide with up to three years residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Institute has no formal programs or departments. Research is collaborative and spans the physical, natural, and social sciences. Most research is theoretical and/or computational in nature, although some research includes an empirical component. SFI averages 15 resident faculty, 95 external faculty, and 250 visitors per year. Applications are welcome from candidates from any country and any discipline.
Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE)
Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) is an NSF-wide program that supports international activities across all NSF supported disciplines. The primary goal of PIRE is to support high quality projects in which advances in research and education could not occur without international collaboration. PIRE seeks to catalyze a higher level of international engagement in the U.S. science and engineering community. The PIRE competition is open to all areas of science and engineering research which are supported by the NSF. The Principal Investigator (PI) must be an employee representing a U.S. Ph.D-granting institution. U.S. citizenship of the PI and other researchers on the U.S. team is not required.
Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience
Columbia University offers three interdisciplinary postdoctoral positions in the Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience program for researchers who have earned the doctorate, or its equivalent, in (1) a humanities, arts, or social science discipline and who have extensive acquaintance with, and critical understanding of, neuroscience research; OR (2) neuroscience or a related discipline in the natural sciences and who have extensive acquaintance with, and critical understanding of, another discipline in the arts, humanities, or social sciences. The appointments are three years, $80,000/year.
Princeton Society of Fellows
The Princeton Society of Fellows is an interdisciplinary group of scholars in the humanities, social sciences, and selected natural sciences. Postdoctoral fellows are appointed each year for three-year terms in residence to pursue research and teach half-time in their academic host department. Fellows are provided with a salary of $88,800 per year, benefits, a $5,000 research account, access to university grants, a shared office, a personal computer and other resources. Fellows are expected to reside in or near Princeton during the academic year in order to attend weekly seminars and participate fully in the intellectual life of the Society.
Stanford Neurosciences Institute Interdisciplinary Scholar Awards
These awards provide funding to postdoctoral scientists at Stanford University engaging in highly interdisciplinary research in the neurosciences broadly defined. Selected scholars will be provided funding for two years, to be utilized for payments toward tuition, salary, and health benefits. In addition, our scholars meet quarterly, visit each others’ labs to learn about different areas of study and research techniques, develop skills to communicate with a non-scientific audience, and how present “elevator pitches.” Candidates in a variety of disciplines will be considered and are encouraged to apply.
University of Michigan Society of Fellows
The University of Michigan invites recent PhD graduates in the arts, sciences and humanities to become resident postdoctoral scholars in the Society of Fellows. The Society of Fellows is an interdisciplinary intellectual community in which the postdoctoral fellows are joined by senior fellows to share their work in progress. Fellowship appointments are for 3 years and include an annual stipend of $60,000 plus benefits including health insurance and additional research funding. International applicants are welcome and underrepresented backgrounds are encouraged to apply.
© Victoria Johnson 2018, all rights reserved