Post-Doctoral Fellow

Position description

Swarthmore College is a highly selective liberal arts college located in the suburbs of Philadelphia, whose mission combines academic rigor with social responsibility. Swarthmore has a strong institutional commitment to inclusive excellence and nondiscrimination in its educational program and employment practices and encourages candidates who will further advance the goal of fostering a diverse and inclusive community. As one of the nation’s finest institutions of higher learning, Swarthmore College is global in outlook and draws students from around the nation and world. The 425-acre campus is a designated arboretum, complete with gardens, rolling lawns, a creek, wooded hills, and hiking trails in the Crum Woods.

Who We Are: 

The Eugene M. Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility facilitates Swarthmore College’s commitment to intellectual rigor, ethical engagement, and social responsibility by connecting the curriculum, campus, and communities, including proximate communities of Chester and Philadelphia; more distant community partners around the country and globe; and the community of scholars and practitioners who share knowledge and best practices regarding ethical action and civic engagement. The Lang Center connects the College’s curricular excellence with engagement in all of those communities using an approach that we identify as Engaged Scholarship.

The opportunity: 

The post-doctoral research fellow will work with Daniel Laurison, Associate Professor of Sociology, to manage Swarthmore College’s Healthy, Equitable and Responsive Democracy (HEARD) Initiative.

The mission of the Healthy Equitable and Responsive Democracy (HEARD) Initiative is to:

1. Connect faculty within and beyond Swarthmore whose research has the potential to improve the health, equity, and responsiveness of US democracy.
2. Support student-faculty research collaborations and student research on topics related to US democracy.
3. Communicate the results of HEARD-affiliated research to broader publics.

Our definition of democracy is broad: it includes not only electoral politics and their consequences, but also the cultural norms, social structures, and everyday practices that facilitate or impede democratic inclusion and decision-making. We believe that stark racial and economic inequality are particularly important challenges to a truly inclusive and healthy democracy, and that activism and social movements, formal and informal education, and community engagement are central aspects of democracy, alongside campaigns and elections, politicians, policies, and laws.

HEARD is proudly interdisciplinary and includes research and researchers focused on a wide array of aspects of US democracy, from the hyper-local to the national level, from work that facilitates communication and connection across racial and class divisions to work that examines the decision-making of political professionals.

The postdoctoral fellow will also be an active member and co-lead of the Politics and Equal Participation Lab (PEPL) run by Dr. Daniel Laurison.

The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in low-income/working-class communities, have conducted research on US politics and racial and/or class inequalities in the US, and have a commitment to producing research that can speak to both scholarly and public audiences. The position is for up to three years, contingent on satisfactory review, and is in-person at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, PA (near Philadelphia). Start date is flexible, June 1 – August 15, 2025.

Essential Responsibilities 

• Contribute to data collection and analysis, and both scholarly and public-facing writing, as part of the Politics and Equal Participation Lab within the HEARD Initiative; this may include co-, lead- and solo-authored papers and contributing to a book project. (25%)
• Work on your own ongoing projects. (25%)
• Manage the HEARD Undergraduate Fellow program, including working with both faculty mentors and undergraduate students. (25%)
• Coordinate speaker series/brown-bag lunches and other HEARD events. (15%)
• Collaborate with HEARD faculty and students to develop and implement future projects related to the Initiative’s themes. (10%)
• Performs other job-related duties as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities

• Primary responsibility for supervising part-time undergraduate student researchers in the HEARD fellows program

Who you are: 

• Excellent writing, research and communication skills.
• Excellent organizational and interpersonal skills.
• Demonstrated ability to: 
  • Work independently with minimal supervision.
  • Set priorities and effectively manage time and resources.
  • Be a constructive and cooperative member of a team.
  • Positively influence colleagues and develop collaborative relationships with a wide range of people, including people outside academia.

What you bring: 

Required Qualifications

• PhD in sociology, political science, or related field, completed or expected by August 2025.
• Experience in conducting research (qualitative and/or quantitative) related to class and/or racial inequality and/or political engagement and participation.

Preferred Qualifications

• A track record of scholarly publication and/or public-facing writing.
• Experience participating in or managing collaborative research projects.
• Connection to/experience with low-income/working class communities.
• Experience with or interest in community-engaged research (or related).
• Experience with event planning and publicity.
• Skills in social network analysis and/or advanced quantitative methods, especially using R.
• Familiarity with Atlas.ti.

What You Will Get:

You’ll work at one of the world’s most renowned liberal arts Colleges, with incredible benefits, a stunning 420-acre campus, and a collaborative work environment. Join a team of passionate, creative people who work hard and have fun supporting the College students, faculty, and staff.

Application instructions

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