Postdoctoral Fellow, Intellectual Pluralism and the Scholarly Habitus

Position description

The Postdoctoral Fellow will work on a project directed by Professors Michèle Lamont and Neil Gross, within a new Interdisciplinary Research Collaborative at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute focused on intellectual pluralism and the changing scholarly habitus in higher education.

This Collaborative brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to examine how professors and students understand and navigate political similarity and difference; how they interpret and practice academic freedom; how they manage the boundary between their roles as scholars and as citizens; and how these dynamics shape research, teaching, student experience, and the production and circulation of knowledge.

Drawing on survey and qualitative methods, and informed by scholarship in sociology, anthropology, political science, history, STS, and related fields, the project will generate new empirical evidence and conceptual tools to inform both scholarly debates and public discourse on intellectual diversity and higher education.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to research design and implementation, including helping to refine research questions and methods, and assisting with survey and interview design.
• Coordinate and support data collection in collaboration with an external research firm (e.g., survey administration, monitoring data quality, pilot and longitudinal waves).
• Analyze quantitative data and develop independent lines of analysis within the project's overarching framework.
• Co-author scholarly outputs, including working papers, journal articles, and contributions to collaborative publications.
• Participate in project meetings and events, including seminars with invited experts, and contribute to the creation of a de-identified, publicly available dataset.
• Help translate research findings for broader audiences, including policymakers, journalists, and the public, in collaboration with the Faculty Leads and Radcliffe staff.

Qualifications

• PhD in sociology, political science or higher education. Candidates must have the Ph.D. in hand at the time of application expect to successfully defend their dissertation by September 1, 2026.
• Strong background in social survey analysis and quantitative methods (e.g., survey design, measurement, statistical analysis). Computational skills are highly desirable.
• Demonstrated interest in at least one of the project's core themes, such as:
  • Intellectual pluralism and academic freedom
  • Sociology of knowledge, expertise, and professions
  • Higher education, student experience, or campus politics
  • Political polarization, democratic discourse, or related topics

Additional Qualifications

• A record of research and publication (or strong promise thereof) relevant to the project's themes.
• Experience with large-scale survey data and/or mixed-methods research.
• Familiarity with debates on academic freedom, campus politics, or the public role of universities in the US context.
• Strong writing and communication skills, including interest in writing for both scholarly and public audiences.

Application instructions

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