Research Opportunities AY2025–26
The following research opportunities are available for Predoctoral Research Fellows applying for the 2025–2026 academic year. Applicants can rank up to four opportunities in their applications. There is no need for applicants to reach out to faculty mentors at this stage.
Technology for social impact in developing countries
Faculty mentor: Susan Athey, Economics, Graduate School of Business
Professor Susan Athey is recruiting one Predoctoral Research Fellow to work on several projects using technology for social impact, as part of her work as director of the Golub Capital Social Impact Lab. One project focuses on developing and evaluating digital media literacy education interventions to reduce the spread of misinformation online in developing countries, with a strong focus on Africa. The research involves both survey outcomes and outcomes measured on Facebook, through our collaborators at Meta. To analyze the on-platform outcomes, lab members work with data simulated to match the Facebook data to develop code scripts that are implemented by our Meta collaborators. In related work, we are collaborating with the WHO to develop approaches to measure and address sources of vaccine hesitancy. A second line of work focuses on using educational technology to teach literacy. We collaborate with providers of educational apps to develop and evaluate AI-driven approaches to increasing student engagement and learning.
Preferred qualifications: Substantial experience writing code in R or Python. Econometrics and statistics knowledge would be highly useful. Attention to detail, organization, independent problem solving, and excellent communication are key.
Climate resilience metrics for low- and middle-income countries
Faculty mentor: Jade Benjamin-Chung, Epidemiology & Population Health, School of Medicine
Professor Jade Benjamin-Chung is recruiting one Predoctoral Research Fellow to work on a project that will develop standardized metrics for climate resilience in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The ultimate goal of this research is to develop measurement tools and data on climate resilience in LMICs in order to foster evidence-based policymaking to support climate adaptation and poverty alleviation. The Fellow will support stakeholder engagement through workshops and working group meetings, qualitative research, and quantitative survey deployment. Additionally, the fellow will have opportunities to support other research projects ongoing in Jade Benjamin-Chung's lab.
Preferred qualifications: Coding experience in R and Stata; proficiency in Excel; fluency in Bengali; willingness to spend a few months of the year in Bangladesh; interest in a career in global health, planetary health, and/or epidemiology.
Experiments in Governance and Economic Development
Faculty mentor: Katherine Casey, Political Economy, Graduate School of Business
Professor Casey is recruiting one Predoctoral Research Fellow to work on empirical evaluations of interventions aimed at strengthening governance institutions and public goods provision. One project focuses on decentralization of infrastructure spending in Zambia. Another explores barriers to women's participation in politics in Sierra Leone.
Preferred qualifications: R, Stata, interest in political economy, interest in doing fieldwork in Zambia and/or Sierra Leone.
Exploring climate change with tools from IO and trade
Faculty mentor: Allan Hsiao, Department of Economics
Professor Hsiao is recruiting one Predoctoral Research Fellow to work on questions at the intersection of environmental and development economics. How will climate change affect lower-income countries in the years to come? What is the scope for adaptation? What can governments do to help? We will draw on tools from empirical industrial organization and international trade to study these questions at both global and local scale.
Preferred qualifications: General programming skills (work will be mainly in Julia and Stata, but any programming background is helpful); strong writing skills in English; previous research experience (in economics) and foreign language skills (in any other language) a plus.
New approaches for mitigating violent conflict and political polarization
Faculty mentor: Saumitra Jha, Political Economy, Graduate School of Business
The Conflict and Polarization Initiative is recruiting one Predoctoral Research Fellow to work on a set of projects that draw lessons from contemporary field experiments and historical natural experiments to help us learn new approaches for mitigating violent conflict and political polarization. The topics include developing financial solutions to political conflict and mitigating the effects of climate change, multi-issue bargaining and the encouragement of trust in cross-cultural settings, how to maintain peace in post-conflict environments and understanding the effectiveness and limitations of non-violent protest. The area focuses and datasets we will develop will be drawn from around the world, including India/South Asia, France, Japan and Mexico.
Preferred qualifications: A deep interest in the political aspects of economic development; a love of social science history; strong attention to detail and strong programming skills in Stata /R, Python, or ArcGIS; econometrics training in causal inference (economics major not required). Experience with web-scraping, and language skills in French, Hindi / other South Asian language, Japanese or Spanish would be a plus.