The School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, in partnership with the Penn Center on Media, Technology, and Democracy and the Annenberg School for Communication, invites applications for a postdoctoral researcher with experience in the quantitative and/or computational study of the political information system, especially news, media, advertising, political campaigns, and citizens’ reactions to them and voting behavior. The Knight Postdoctoral Fellow is intended for a quantitative researcher or computational social scientist with a background in political science, communication, or computer science, or another relevant discipline interested in studying topics including news content production, diffusion, and consumption, political agenda-setting, and the impact of emerging technologies and communication media on citizens’ political attitudes and behaviors.

The Knight Postdoctoral Fellow may have access to large and highly granular datasets of media consumption and content through the Computational Social Science Lab as well as extensive survey and election data. Therefore, ideal candidates will have expertise in computational social science (especially machine learning and natural language processing) and experience working with large media and/or textual datasets. Interest in advancing methods of computational social science, such as experiments using conjoint designs or LLM-generated treatments, is preferred. We anticipate a 50/50 split between the postdoc working on projects identified by the supervisors and on projects of their own choice.

This postdoc will join a cohort of Knight PhD and Postdoctoral Fellows affiliated with the Penn Center on Media, Technology, and Democracy, attending a regular Information & Democracy Research Seminar and participating in other Center events and programming.

The Knight Postdoctoral Fellow will be co-supervised by Julie and Martin Franklin Presidential Professor Daniel J. Hopkins and Annenberg School of Communication Associate Professor Yphtach Lelkes. The position is expected to start in Summer or early Fall 2026. The initial appointment is one year with a possible extension for a second year based on satisfactory performance, ongoing funding and supervisor availability, and mutual agreement. A competitive salary, including benefits and funding, will be provided. Health insurance is a shared cost. There is no teaching requirement for this position.

This is a full-time appointment and will be located on the University’s campus in Philadelphia, PA.

Qualifications:

Candidates should show outstanding capacity for research, as well as excellent communication skills apparent through their writing sample, references, and possible interviews. Applicants must have a Ph.D. by the time of appointment (which is expected to be around 9/1/2026) from an accredited university in a relevant field, including Political Science, Computational Social Science, Communication, Computer Science, Information or Network Sciences.

 

Application Instructions

To apply, please submit the following materials via email to: contact-us@infodem.upenn.edu

Please mention the “SAS Knight Postdoctoral Fellow” in the subject line.

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis until the position is filled. Interested candidates are encouraged to submit the following materials by February 13, 2026:

• Cover Letter
• Curriculum Vitae
• Research Statement
• Selected Publications (no more than 2 articles/chapters totaling 100 pages)
• Contact Information for three references

The University of Pennsylvania is an equal opportunity employer. Candidates are considered for employment without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, creed, national origin (including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics), citizenship status, age, disability, veteran status or any class protected under applicable federal, state, or local law.