Postdoctoral Scholar

The Golub Capital Social Impact Lab has a 2-year post-doctoral fellow opening, working with Professor Susan Athey and other faculty affiliates of the lab. The ideal candidate will have conducted behavioral/experimental research and have experience working with external partners on field experiments. Excellent candidates with other specialities or backgrounds related to the lab’s work will also be considered.

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The position involves: developing and working on research projects using advanced experimental design and other causal inference techniques serving as project manager and collaborator on research projects, as a coauthor on some projects and as an assisting researcher on others interfacing with industry partners and supervising research assistants at various levels of seniority. The ideal candidate is either preparing for an academic position in a field closely aligned with the lab, for which collaboration on the lab’s projects would serve as strong preparation, or an industry position, ie., in a technology company.

This position does not incorporate independent research by the fellow outside the scope of the lab; any independent research would be conducted outside of regular work hours and should be managed so as to not present a conflict of commitment to the lab. Depending on the fellow’s skills and interests, the fellowship will allow the opportunity to: create novel experimental designs, including adaptive and dynamic treatment regimes, bandits, and contextual bandits; run experiments in collaboration with technology firms or on tech firm platforms; use and develop cutting edge methodology for working with large data sets, using university infrastructure or the infrastructure of tech firms, including tools of machine learning and causal inference; develop coding expertise for publicly released software; and/or develop expertise in managing large-scale empirical projects with large code bases written by teams.

The postdoc will be responsible for: Training and managing student research assistants; including ensuring continuity over projects on which multiple research assistants might work on across time. Planning, organizing, and overseeing research projects; including identifying promising research areas, ensuring good progress on projects, and securing all necessary data, research assistants and software to conduct research. Contributing to website content and course material relating to research projects; including writing about work to engage advanced student, funder and partner audiences. Managing relationships with external (non-academic) partners such as tech companies and nonprofits; including coordinating meetings and workflow with external partners and selecting external partners and projects to collaborate on. Contributing to funding applications and IRB approvals.

The strongest applicants will have a variety of skills and preparation, and a strong desire to rapidly obtain any skills and experience that are lacking. Desirable skills and experience include: PhD (completed by start of employment) in economics, business or management disciplines, statistics, decision sciences, political science, psychology, marketing, experimental philosophy, or any other relevant scientific discipline or related fields, with deep expertise relevant to at least some of the problems and methods described above

Training in behavioral science research methods Excellent coding skills and experience with statistical software in multiple languages (R, Python, C++ are used regularly)

Experience with econometrics, modeling and/or programming Experience with large datasets

Experience with designing, implementing and analyzing experiments

Experience using cloud computing services such as AWS, Azure, etc.

Experience with Github or similar tools for collaboration and version control

Experience in interdisciplinary research, working in collaborative teams and managing research assistants Excellent organizational skills, including the ability to set goals, track progress, and prioritize to meet deadlines

Strong communication skills

To apply, please send email with CV and cover letter, 3 references and job market/other paper to susan.athey.lab@gmail.com. In your cover letter, answer the following questions: When would you be able to start as a postdoc? How long would you be interested in staying as a postdoc in the lab? In what ways would being the role help you accomplish your career goals? The position does not involve independent research outside the scope of the lab. Instead, you would work on collaborative projects related to the lab’s missions and partners. Please include how this arrangement fits into your career goals. Have you used GitHub? If so, what have you used it for? Have you supervised research assistants or worked collaboratively in teams with multiple students? Are you legally eligible to work in the U.S.? Will you now or in the future require visa sponsorship for employment at Stanford?