Pre-Doctoral Research Fellow in Economics
POSITION FILLED
Faculty Supervisor(s):
Barbara Biasi and Song Ma
Position Description:
Professor Barbara Biasi, together with Professor Song Ma at the Yale School of Management and Professor Zhengren Zhu at Vassar College, is hiring a full-time pre-doctoral research fellow to work on projects in applied microeconomics, with a focus on higher education, skills, and labor-market outcomes. The fellow will be based at Yale University in New Haven, USA. The start date is July or August 2026 and the duration is up to two years. The position is ideal for candidates who are considering applying to Ph.D. programs in economics or related fields and who are interested in gaining hands-on experience with frontier empirical research. The research fellow will contribute to projects that use large-scale administrative, textual, and labor-market data to study how educational institutions shape students’ skills, academic trajectories, and economic opportunities. The fellow’s responsibilities may include cleaning and analyzing large datasets, constructing and validating new measures, conducting statistical analyses, writing and maintaining code, reviewing related literature, preparing tables and figures, and contributing to the broader research workflow. The position will involve close collaboration with faculty and other members of the research team.
Requisite Skills and Qualifications:
We are especially interested in candidates with:
• A bachelor’s or master’s degree in economics or a related quantitative field;
• Strong quantitative and empirical skills;
• Prior research experience in applied microeconomics, education, labor, public economics, or a related field;
• Familiarity with Stata and/or R;
• Experience with Python;
• Interest in using agentic AI tools to support research workflows, combined with a strong commitment to verification and research transparency;
• Genuine motivation to study education, skills, and economic opportunity;
• Excellent organizational skills, attention to detail, and ability to work independently
Special Application Instructions:
Interested candidates should email laurel.mahler@yale.edu using “[FULL NAME] – Biasi PreDoc” as the subject, and attach a zip file containing:
• Resume or CV;
• Academic transcript(s);
• Cover letter;
• Sample of code in Stata or R;
• Writing sample, if available.
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis; shortlisted candidates will be contacted to schedule an interview.