The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, in partnership with the Penn Center on Media, Technology, and Democracy, invites applications for a postdoctoral researcher with expertise in the quantitative study of the information ecosystem, especially news, media, and advertising. The Knight Postdoctoral Fellow is intended for a quantitative researcher or computational social scientist with a background in economics, computer science, engineering or a relevant discipline interested in studying topics including news content and consumption, media bias and censorship, the relationship between entertainment and news, and the impact of emerging technologies on journalism.

The Knight Postdoctoral Fellow will have access to large and highly granular datasets of media consumption and content through the Computational Social Science Lab. Therefore, ideal candidates will have expertise in computational social science (especially machine learning and natural language processing) and experience working with large media datasets. Interest in advancing methods of computational social science, such as experiments using LLM-generated naturalistic text, is preferred.

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 Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor Duncan Watts, Associate Professor of Marketing Pinar Yildirim, and Assistant Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions Dean Knox.

The position is expected to start in Spring or Summer 2026. The initial appointment is one year with a possible extension for a second year based on satisfactory performance. A competitive salary, including benefits, will be provided. 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. Applicants must have a Ph.D. from an accredited university in a relevant field, including Economics, Computational Social Science, Marketing Science, Computer Science, Information or Network Sciences.

 

Application Instructions

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

Applications will be considered on a rolling basis until the position is filled, but interested candidates are encouraged to submit the following materials by January 11, 2026 for full consideration:

• Cover Letter
• Curriculum Vitae
• Research Statement
• Selected Publications
• 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.