Postdoctoral Fellowship in Early Childhood

Aefpweb; Ann Arbor (MI); On-site; USD 60,000 - 70,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Travel funds

Job summary

The Education Policy Initiative (EPI) at the University of Michigan invites applications for a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship in Early Childhood. The fellow will lead quantitative analyses, work with district and state partners, and produce policy-relevant briefs alongside academic outputs.

Mentorship will be provided by leading faculty including Christina Weiland and Sarah Cohodes. The role encompasses three core projects in Arkansas, West Virginia, and Mississippi, with opportunities for

Qualifications

• PhD completed before Dec 31, 2026 in a relevant social science discipline.
• Experience with quantitative and qualitative education policy research.
• Ability to lead quantitative analysis and collaborate with multiple institutions.

Responsibilities

• Lead quantitative analysis for one or more projects.
• Support collection and analysis of program data (e.g., fidelity and student outcomes).
• Contribute to reports, policy briefs, and conference presentations.
• Provide general project support including data gathering and summaries.

Skills

Quantitative methods

Mixed methods

Education

PhD in social science

Job description

Postdoctoral Fellowship in Early Childhood

Position: Postdoctoral Fellowship in Early Childhood

Organization: Education Policy Initiative, University of Michigan

Location: Ann Arbor, MI, United States

Posting Start Date: 10/22/2026

Date Posted: 10/22/2026

Summary

The Education Policy Initiative (EPI) seeks candidates interested in deepening their knowledge of rigorous, applied quantitative and mixed-methods education policy research for a two-year postdoctoral fellowship. EPI will hire up to two postdoctoral fellows to begin as soon as possible, in winter 2026.

EPI is composed of researchers interested in understanding and evaluating education policies at the local, state, and national level. This fellowship position will train the postdoctoral fellow to use quantitative and qualitative methods to evaluate outcomes and disseminate lessons learned about early childhood curriculum implementation. Fellows should be interested in applied research, implementation science, creating policymaker-focused deliverables (along with academic articles), working with district and state partners, and leading the quantitative analysis in collaboration with scholars at EPI, UM, and other highly respected institutions.

Fellows will receive close mentorship from professor Christina Weiland and will have the opportunity to learn from cross-disciplinary faculty at EPI, with co-mentorship from Sarah Cohodes for the West Virginia project. The fellows will also have the opportunity to work with state and district partners in Mississippi and Arkansas, among others. Fellowships will include working with experts such as Michelle Maier from MDRC, the communications firm Advocacy & Communications Solutions, and pre‑k curriculum expert Melissa Luc. Moreover, the University of Michigan (UM) is home to a dynamic community of researchers, with ample opportunity for professional development—via participation in seminars and trainings, as well as through exposure to high-profile speakers.

Fellows will work across the following early childhood projects with exact roles dependent on candidate experience and expertise:

First Project

The first project builds upon a broader Gates Foundation‑funded project to generate stories of effective curriculum implementation. Fellows will support research funded by the Overdeck Family Foundation to better understand variation in curriculum implementation and links between fidelity of implementation and gains in student outcomes. The postdoc will serve as the quantitative analysis lead on this project.

Responsibilities may include:

• supporting collection of fidelity data
• leading processing and analysis of all quantitative data including fidelity data, CLASS, and child outcome and covariates data
• writing of reports and academic articles
• supporting other project deliverables such as policy briefs and conference presentations

Second Project

A second body of work is in Arkansas, supporting the state’s use of HQIM in early childhood. The state is currently working to adapt and pilot the Boston Public School’s Focus on Pre‑K curricula, with the goal of offering it as an option for other programs in the state in the future. Postdocs will provide general project support including:

• supporting curriculum revisions
• gathering, analyzing, and summarizing feedback from the pilot
• supporting curriculum iteration after the pilot
• contributing to reports and written project deliverables

Third Project

The third project the fellows will support is a quasi-experimental study to understand the impact of school closures in West Virginia. In recent years, West Virginia has seen a wave of school closures, and our team at the University of Michigan has been tracking these closures, participating in local non‑partisan policy meetings, and connecting with local universities tracking vacant schools across the state.

For this project, fellows will lead quantitative analysis. Responsibilities may include:

• assembling public data on school closures
• applying for student‑level data and completing the UM IRB process
• contributing to the analysis on predictors of closures
• fitting difference‑in‑difference modelsco‑leading write‑ups of findings

Inclusive Environment

EPI strives to foster an inclusive work environment that is home to scholars with a wide range of backgrounds and research interests. We do so by bringing in a diverse set of speakers who do research directly on inequality in education, encouraging trainings and collaborations across campus, surveying community members about our seminar culture, and self‑evaluating ways to make our research — from start to finish — more equitable. We are interested in recruiting applicants with diverse backgrounds and life experiences and from a diverse pool of academic disciplines and PhD institutions.

Benefits

• competitive salary and benefits plus funds for related travel

Duration and Location

This is a 1-2 year fellowship beginning in the winter of 2026/2027 with competitive salary and benefits plus funds for related travel. Renewal of the position in the 2nd year is contingent on strong performance and continued project funding in the first year. EPI strongly prefers to hire a candidate who is willing to work from U-M’s Ann Arbor campus; hybrid situations may be considered for exceptional remote candidates, particularly those who live in a partner state.

Application Process and Deadline

We will begin reviewing applications on November 6th, 2026 and the tentative deadline for submitting an application is November 20th, 2026. Anticipated start date is approximately January 2027.

Qualifications

• Applicants must have completed their PhD in a relevant social science discipline prior to December 31, 2026, have an interest in researching education and receiving further training in quantitative methods, and have academic research experience in public policy, implementation science, education, quantitative methodology, qualitative methods, or other similar fields.

The University of Michigan is an equal opportunity employer.