JOE Listings (Job Openings for Economists)

August 1, 2021 - January 31, 2022

Stanford University

This listing is inactive.
Graduate School of Business
Golub Capital Social Impact Lab
Postdoctoral Fellow

JOE ID Number: 2021-02_111468828
Date Posted: 01/07/2022
Date Inactive: 01/31/2022
Position Title/Short Description
Title: Postdoctoral Fellow
Section: US: Other Academic (Visiting or Temporary)
Location: Stanford, California, UNITED STATES
JEL Classifications:
A -- General Economics and Teaching
C -- Mathematical and Quantitative Methods
O -- Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth
D -- Microeconomics
Keywords:
Experiments
Charitable Giving
Machine Learning
Contextual Bandits
Adaptive and Dynamic Treatment Regimes
Big Data
Full Text of JOE Listing:

The Golub Capital Social Impact Lab has a 2-year post-doctoral fellow opening, working with Professor Susan Athey and other faculty affiliates. The lab’s research is focused on improving the effectiveness of social impact organizations, particularly in the domains of education, charitable giving, health, government services, worker training, and financial health.

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.

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
-supervising RAs at various levels of seniority
-As the lab is increasing research efforts in the area of charitable giving, the postdoctoral fellow is likely to be involved in research projects in the domain area.

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., a technology company.

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, 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 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 in economics, business or management disciplines, statistics, decision sciences, political science, psychology, marketing, experimental philosophy, or any other relevant scientific discipline, with expertise relevant to at least some of the problems and methods described above
-Excellent coding skills and experience with statistical software in multiple languages eg. R.
-Experience with econometrics, modeling and/or programming
-Experience with large datasets
-Experience with designing, implementing and analyzing experiments
-Experience with Github or similar tools for collaboration and version control
-Experience in interdisciplinary research, working in teams and managing RAs

Application Requirements:
  • Application Instructions Below
Application Instructions:
To apply, please send email with CV and cover letter, 3 references and job market/other paper to susan.athey.lab@gmail.com. Initial deadline: March 1 2022. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis. We begin reviewing applications January 21.

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 RAs or worked collaboratively in teams?
-Are you legally eligible to work in the US?