Post-Doctoral Fellowship (Digital Civil Society Lab) – Stanford

Description:

The Digital Civil Society Lab brings promising new scholars to Stanford University for 1-2 year appointments as postdoctoral fellows.  

Each fellow will be affiliated with the Digital Civil Society Lab and potentially also with a department or school at Stanford University.  

The annual fellowship stipend is $65,000, plus the standard benefits that postdoctoral fellows at Stanford University receive, including health insurance and travel funds. The fellowship program falls under U.S. Immigration J-1 Exchange Visitor Visa activities. 

The start date of the fellowship will be September 2019, unless otherwise agreed. To assume a postdoctoral fellowship, scholars must have a PhD in hand by July 1, 2019. We cannot consider applications from scholars who earned a PhD earlier than May 1, 2017.  

We encourage applications from candidates representing a broad range of disciplines including the social sciences, humanities, law, computer science and engineering.  

The Digital Civil Society Lab aims to understand how digital technology has transformed civil society and shape these transformations by engaging research, practitioner and policy communities across the interconnected domains that support a thriving and independent civil society in the digital age: 

• Technology: software and hardware designed for the values and interest of civil society actors  

• Organizations: structures and practices that align with civil society missions and protect institutional independence from markets or governments  
• Policy: legal practices and regulatory frames that protect the building blocks of civil society, including free association, speech, and privacy  
• Norms: social norms and practices that promote safe and ethical data collection, generation and use, and that support the critical role of civil society in democracies 

The Digital Civil Society Lab is investigating key research themes which include:

• The key dimensions of digital infrastructure and data and how they influence the role of independent civil society in democracies;  

• Understanding, creating, and expanding access to software, hardware and digital practices that align with the values of civil society in democracies;  
• The nature of digital data donations and/or the governance mechanisms, enterprise forms, or legal constructs that such donations require;  
• The role of digital infrastructure, data, and connectivity and their influence on relationships between governments, markets, and civil society.  

 The Lab’s research draws from the humanities, social sciences, engineering, computer science and the law to understand and advance the principles of civil society and democracies in the digital age.  

Application Info:

Applicants will be asked to include the following: 

• Cover letter detailing the reasons for the applicant’s interest in the fellowship; 
• Curriculum Vitae; 
• Fellowship proposal detailing the research that the applicant would undertake while at Stanford, and how it fits within the research agenda of the specific initiative to which the applicant is applying. In this section, please disclose if you have additional funding arrangements. 
• Writing sample consisting of either a dissertation chapter or a recent published paper. There are no specific page length or formatting requirements for this sample; 
• Graduate transcript with proof that the applicant has completed all the requirements for the PhD, or a letter from their PhD advisor stating when they will do so; 
• Two (or more) Letters of Recommendation. These should be submitted via the application portal.

Application:

Interested applicants can apply here.