Postdoctoral Position, faculty mentor Robb Willer

Posted on Thu, 09/10/2026 - 14:18. Faculty Sponsor: Robb Willer. Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI).

About the role

Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), in partnership with the AI for Public Benefit Lab (AI4PB), invites applications for a postdoctoral fellow under the mentorship of Professor Robb Willer. The fellow will be the inaugural dedicated postdoctoral scholar in AI4PB and will play a formative role in a growing interdisciplinary research program focused on using artificial intelligence to make a measurable difference in people's lives. The position also includes a secondary home in the Politics and Social Change Lab (PASCL). Research program AI is changing how people learn, decide, and get help. At AI4PB, we study that change with curiosity, care, and rigor. We leverage AI to make a measurable difference in people's lives. Our work focuses on the intersections between AI and Behavioral Science, Democracy, Social Services, Emotional Well-Being, and Persuasion and draw on many disciplines including sociology, psychology, political science, computer science, and policy. The fellow will help advance this agenda alongside our team of researchers and practitioners. The fellow may also be expected to contribute to flagship projects on how AI can improve access to trustworthy political information, including nonpartisan large language model (LLM) voter guides and benchmarking efforts to evaluate AI systems on dimensions like accuracy and political neutrality. There will also be substantial room for the fellow to pursue independent work at the intersection of AI and public benefit. Prospective applicants can review our recent papers at ai4pb.stanford.edu/papers for a fuller sense of the lab's projects and interests.

Responsibilities

• Research leadership. Co-design and co-lead research projects, from study conception through dissemination.
• Technical development. Advance methods such as retrieval-augmented generation, source-grounding, and evaluation infrastructure in collaboration with technical team members and external partners.
• Evaluation. Develop rigorous approaches to assessing accuracy, reliability, neutrality, trustworthiness, and other dimensions of responsible AI performance.
• Experimental research. Design and execute large-scale field and survey experiments.
• Analysis and publication. Analyze complex data and lead manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals and conferences in human-centered AI and the social sciences.
• Collaboration and translation. Work effectively with multidisciplinary researchers and civic partners, and communicate findings to academic, practitioner, and policy audiences.
• Program development. Contribute to new research projects and proposals while pursuing complementary independent work at the intersection of AI and public benefit.
• Mentorship, community, and professional development. The fellow will receive close mentorship from Professor Willer spanning research design, publication strategy, project leadership, and preparation for the academic or applied job market. Mentorship will be tailored to the fellow's research and professional goals. The fellow will complete an Individual Development Plan during the first month and meet regularly with the faculty mentor to review research progress and career development. The fellow will participate in HAI, AI4PB, and PASCL seminars, workshops, conferences, and lab training and will collaborate with PhD students, postdoctoral scholars, faculty, research staff, and external partners. Stanford collaborators include HAI, the Stanford Technology, Impact, and Policy Center, and the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences; external partners include Ballotpedia and Ipsos. Stanford computational infrastructure will support the work. The fellow will also prepare brief quarterly fellowship reports describing research, writing, and presentation activities and will engage with relevant HAI programming throughout the appointment.

Requirements

• PhD completed by the appointment start date in computer science, data science, human-computer interaction, psychology, sociology, political science, communication, economics, or a related field.
• A record of rigorous, creative research and the ability to lead projects from design through analysis and publication.
• Strong quantitative or computational research skills relevant to field experiments, survey experiments, causal inference, text analysis, machine learning, or related methods.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, including interest in communicating research to non-academic audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively across disciplines and organizations while exercising intellectual and practical autonomy.
• Strong organizational and interpersonal skills and the ability to prioritize effectively in a fast-moving research environment.

Qualifications

• Experience with large language models, natural language processing, transformer-based models, retrieval-augmented generation, or LLM application programming interfaces.
• Proficiency in Python or comparable programming experience for implementing computational studies and working with large, complex datasets.
• Experience evaluating political bias, fairness, neutrality, trustworthiness, safety, or source fidelity in AI systems.
• Experience conducting large-scale online or field experiments, working with administrative or voter-file data, or collaborating on public-facing civic technology.
• A strong publication record and demonstrated interest in the societal impacts of AI.

Benefits

• Eligible medical, dental, vision, and life-insurance coverage through Stanford's benefits provisions for postdoctoral scholars.

Pay

Expected base pay range: $80,000 - $90,000. The position pays above the required minimum; final offer based on qualifications, budget, and internal equity.

Schedule

Full-time position based at Stanford University.