The University of Michigan President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is accepting applications through Nov. 1, with a supporting letter from the unit’s chair, director, associate dean or dean due Dec. 1.
The fellowship, now in its 14th year, is facilitated by the U-M ADVANCE Program and the Office of the Provost and supports exceptional scholars whose research, teaching and service will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity in higher education.
The university views these postdoctoral fellowships as an opportunity to recruit potential new faculty to tenure-track positions.
In the 2024-25 cycle, U-M welcomes applications from candidates who propose to work with faculty mentors in one of the following 10 schools and colleges:
- School of Dentistry
- Marsal Family School of Education
- College of Engineering
- School for Environment and Sustainability
- Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
- School of Kinesiology
- School of Music, Theatre & Dance
- School of Nursing
- School of Public Health
- School of Social Work
Four new PPFP scholars will arrive on campus this fall. They are Jessica Dozier in the School of Nursing, Darnell Leatherwood in the Marsal School, Rory O’Brien in the School of Social Work, and Jalani Williams in the College of Engineering.
Meanwhile, two postdoctoral scholars selected for last year’s program — Alexis Riley and Julie Zhu, both in SMTD — have been reappointed for the 2024-25 academic year.
Riley is continuing her work on disability and performance, and is currently writing a monograph. Zhu is continuing her collaborations with U-M faculty in the Department of Organ and the Department of Performing Arts Technology. She is also developing a virtual reality opera.
Dozier earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in women’s studies at U-M, followed by a Master of Public Health degree at Emory University and a Ph.D. in public health at Johns Hopkins University.
A first-generation college student, Dozier has focused on gender equity, reproductive health and health disparities. Specifically, her research interests focus on reproductive autonomy and coercion, the role of male partners in women’s sexual and reproductive health, and the intersection between gender-based violence and women’s sexual and reproductive health.
Dozier completed a year of national service with AmeriCorps and on the board of directors of the Telluride Association, which is dedicated to the intellectual and personal development of high school students and undergraduates.
Leatherwood has an undergraduate degree in management and business process management from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Master of Arts degree in social sciences and a Ph.D. in social policy and social welfare from the University of Chicago.
With a strong background in quantitative research methods, Leatherwood’s work focuses on the elimination of inequities and inequalities in the education of youth. His research examines the factors associated with the educational success of young Black students and he worked with My Brother’s Keeper, an educational initiative launched by Barack Obama to address persistent opportunity gaps for boys and young men of color.
O’Brien completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in women’s and gender studies at Willamette University, a Master of Social Work and a Master of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis, and a Ph.D. in social work at the University of Southern California.
They propose a qualitative research exploration of high school name change policies in the Detroit area, work that is informed by their experience as a public health social worker and nonbinary scholar and extends their dissertation research on LGBTQ policies at public high schools in Los Angeles.
O’Brien’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion is suffused throughout their choice of research topics, methods, questions and commitment to working alongside communities.
Williams obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from CalTech and recently completed his Ph.D. in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. He is interested in applying techniques from applied probability and decision-making under uncertainty to guide the design of large-scale service systems, such as cloud computing and health care data systems.
Specifically focusing on resource provisioning in data centers, Williams is exploring new methods to quantify the impact of setup time — time needed to turn on a server after it has been turned off — on job delay in multiserver systems.
His work is poised to be influential across multiple disciplines, including cloud computing, health care and supply chains. As a scholar from an underrepresented background, Williams advocates for improvement in fostering a sense of belonging, community and comfort in academia.
President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program candidates are expected to identify a faculty member willing to serve as a mentor, and U-M faculty members are encouraged to identify emerging scholars who would be appropriate for the program.
The PPFP is designed to support postdoctoral fellowships as well as tenure-track positions. Twenty-one past fellows — nearly two-thirds of all past fellows — have transitioned to an assistant professor position at U-M following the postdoctoral fellowship.
