Fellowships

PEPG is offering two-year partial-tuition fellowships for those pursuing the Master of Public Policy program at HKS or an equivalent master’s program at Harvard University. Please note that the deadline to submit applications for admission to Harvard University varies among degrees/programs and schools. Check with the specific program for the appropriate admissions deadline.

Applicants should submit the following materials (in PDF format) no later than Feb. 26, 2024, at 12 p.m. EST to pepg_administrator@hks.harvard.edu:

• Letter of intent (not to exceed 1,000 words) with current contact information including email address.

Please discuss your interest in education policy and education entrepreneurship, making direct connections to your personal goals and past experiences, and how they motivate you to apply for a PEPG fellowship.  In your letter, you must note which degree program you have applied for (MPP, MPA, etc.).

• Current curriculum vitae (not to exceed two pages in length).

Applicants whenever possible should email their materials to pepg_administrator@hks.harvard.edu (in PDF format). All materials must arrive by arrive by the deadline noted above. Incomplete applications may not be reviewed/considered.

For further information, please email: pepg_administrator@hks.harvard.edu.

PEPG is offering a one-year resident research fellowship at the postdoctoral level starting in the summer of 2023. The fellow will work at Harvard University and engage in independent projects that are related to the program’s focus. Additionally, s/he will be expected to collaborate with PEPG’s ongoing research and programs. This may include conference planning and administration, as well as working on PEPG publications. Applicants who have not yet received their Doctoral degree may apply. However, they must receive it by September 1, 2024, in order to participate. Fellows must begin their residency no later than the week of August 26, 2024.

Candidates must have received PhD (or equivalent degree) within five years of the applied-for academic year.

We are particularly seeking fellows interested in studying the association between various forms of social capital and student outcomes with multiple large scale cross sectional and panel datasets.

The Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) at Harvard University has nationally representative data on student achievement from various surveys for over half a century. PEPG is also assembling longitudinal panel data from many other surveys. In the past fellows and faculty associated with PEPG have produced outstanding research from these datasets. The research has led to high-quality peer-reviewed publications, working papers, and the work has been cited by major news outlets.  Some of this research has also influenced major philanthropic decisions.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the conventional wisdom suggested that US students’ educational performance was consistently deteriorating over half a century. The conventional thinking also lamented widening performance gaps between ethnic and socio-economic groups. PEPG research highlighted that the conventional wisdom was wrong, and there has been considerable progress in student achievement, with an edge in performance growth for ethnic minorities and socio-economically disadvantaged students in comparison to the growth for their white and socio-economically advantaged peers.

Building upon previous research, PEPG is seeking motivated fellows to work with these data for a large scale project titled “Schools, society, and equal educational opportunity.” The work is led by PEPG director Professor Paul E. Peterson and former PEPG fellow Professor M. Danish Shakeel. The fellows will construct new reliable datasets on various indicators of social capital, and then assess the relationship of these indicators with various academic and other outcomes.

The research output from these datasets will range from large-scale descriptive to causal inference related publications. Fellows should be willing to build a diverse skill set with the research team. Potential fellows will have background in sociology, political science, economics, or education policy. We seek strong quantitative research skills. Different portions of the project would involve knowledge of creating database from existing files, work with census data, psychometric knowledge of surveys, factor analysis, principal component analysis, item-response theory, survey weights, rigorous quantitative analysis skills of large-scale cross-sectional and longitudinal panel datasets with an understanding of causal inference, systematic reviews, and robust variance estimation technique in meta-analysis. Software skills in MS Excel, STATA (R and python would be a good addition), and ArcGIS would be beneficial. Fellows will have an opportunity to use the work for their thesis.

The stipend for the postdoctoral fellowship is $75,000. It provides modest health insurance coverage but no housing. However, assistance in obtaining affordable housing will be provided.

Applicants should submit the following materials:

• Letter of intent with current contact information including email address.
• Current curriculum vitae (please include any past awards, scholarships and publications).
• A 2,000-word proposal describing one or more research projects that will be conducted and completed while at PEPG. The proposal should include relevant background information, discrete objectives, importance and feasibility, as well as the methodology that will be used.
• Two samples of writing, if not published, then of publishable quality. These should be pertinent to the proposed research.
• The names of and letters of recommendation from three or four people qualified and willing to evaluate the applicant’s project and scholarly qualifications. Recommenders should mail their letters directly to PEPG, or they can be emailed to the address below.

Applicants should email their materials to pepg_administrator@hks.harvard.edu (in PDF format). Incomplete applications may not be reviewed/considered.

For further information, please email: pepg_administrator@hks.harvard.edu.