Postdoctoral Fellow in Historical Psychology & Cultural Evolution

Position Overview

The Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University invites applications for a Postdoctoral Fellow to join the Laboratory for Culture, Cognition, and Coevolution. This role focuses on investigating long-term psychological and cultural change using social science, evolutionary theory, and quantitative methods. The fellow will contribute to a multi-year project on historical psychology and the cultural evolution of epistemological frameworks, examining how knowledge systems, reasoning styles, and social institutions transform across time and space.

Psychology

• Collaborate with the PI and interdisciplinary team on conceptual development, data construction, analysis, and writing.
• Design and implement quantitative text-analytic workflows and historical datasets.
• Produce high-quality scholarly publications in anthropology, psychology, sociology, and interdisciplinary journals.
• Participate actively in lab meetings, departmental seminars, and the broader intellectual life of the department.

Social Sciences

• Mentor graduate and undergraduate researchers involved in the project.

Appointment

• One-year, full-time position with the possibility of renewal for a second year based on performance and funding.
• Salary and benefits follow Harvard postdoctoral compensation guidelines.

Basic Qualifications

• PhD in anthropology, sociology, psychology, or closely related fields.
• Strong quantitative skills and experience with large-scale or complex datasets.

Biological Sciences

• Experience in computational text analysis (e.g., NLP methods, historical text processing, topic modeling, semantic change).
• Broad interest in cultural evolution, cognitive anthropology, historical social science, or long-term behavioral change.
• Record of independent research and scholarly publications.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with archival, textual, and cross-cultural sources across Eurasia.
• Knowledge of Latin or Classical Chinese is a significant plus but not required.