Predoctoral Fellow, The Shift Project at Harvard Kennedy School

Professors Daniel Schneider (Harvard Kennedy School) and Kristen Harknett (University of California, Berkeley) are recruiting up to three full-time predoctoral research fellows to start in fall 2026. The fellows will support and collaborate on survey data collection from frontline retail and food-service employees, assist with data cleaning and analysis, and contribute to research reports and papers.  

The successful applicants will receive mentoring from faculty within a tight-knit research community at the Wiener Center and access to a broad range of activities at Harvard. Prior Fellows at the Malcolm Wiener Center have gone on to attend PhD programs in Sociology, Economics, Labor Studies, and Public Policy.  

This position is based at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, MA. Appointment terms for Fellows are for one year with the strong potential for a second-year renewal. Preference will be given to applicants who have availability to work for two years.  

This is a hybrid position based on our campus in Cambridge, MA.  As a campus-based institution, we place a high value on the in-person experience, cross-team collaboration, and strong community building in order to create a vibrant campus for our students, faculty, staff, and research fellows. The position is required to work in-person on campus a minimum of four days per week during the academic year. Please see below for qualifications. 

Required 

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Sociology, Public Policy, Economics, or related field 

• Outstanding organizational and time management skills 

• Prior experience as a research assistant or fellow in sociology, labor studies, public policy, or economics 

• Proficiency programming in Stata and R 

• Distinguished academic record 

• Significant interest in labor studies, public policy, and sociological research 

• Strong written and oral communication skills 

Preferred 

• Proficiency programming in Python 

• Proficiency with the responsible use of generative AI  

• Experience using Adobe InDesign 

• Experience with citation management software, preferably Zotero 

• Prior experience as a retail or food-service worker