The U-M President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is accepting applications through Nov. 1, with a supporting letter from the unit — chair, director, associate dean, or dean — due Dec. 1.
The fellowship, now in its 12th year, is facilitated by the U-M ADVANCE Program and supports exceptional scholars whose research, teaching and service will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity in higher education.
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The university views these postdoctoral fellowships as an opportunity to recruit potential new faculty to tenure-track positions.
In the 2022-23 cycle, U-M welcomes applications from candidates who propose to work with faculty mentors in one of the following eight schools and colleges:
- College of Engineering
- Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
- School for Environment and Sustainability
- School of Dentistry
- School of Kinesiology
- School of Nursing
- School of Music, Theatre & Dance
- School of Public Health
Two new postdoctoral scholars selected for the program — Jessica Fayne and Chelsea Peterson-Salahuddin — arrive on campus this year.
Fayne, who received her Ph.D. in geography from the University of California, Los Angeles, designs algorithms using remote sensing datasets to study water features such as water quantity and state. The work crosses the fields of electrical engineering (radar science), earth science and civil engineering (hydrology and geomorphology), urban planning (land use) and geography (spatial analytics).
As a PPFP fellow, she will use remote sensing technology and hydrologic models to understand future changes to global terrestrial water storage and arctic permafrost dynamics. This work will enable more robust monitoring of available water resources in aid of predicting extreme events leading to flooding, droughts, wildfires and moisture-induced landslides.
Arriving in January, she will work with Brian Arbic and Eric Hetland in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences in LSA.
Peterson-Salahuddin, who received her Ph.D. in media, technology and society at Northwestern University, focuses on the role of mass and digital communication technologies in shaping how historically racially marginalized communities create and access information, as tools for social and political liberation.
She also is interested in how the infrastructure of these technologies helps these communities to overcome or continue to replicate systemic barriers to equity.
As a PPFP fellow she plans to examine how Black women use digital technologies to engage in news information seeking, as a gateway to social and political participation. She arrived on campus this fall and works with Nicole Ellison in the School of Information.
The PPFP was created in collaboration with the University of California. It combines salary, benefits and research support with faculty mentoring, professional development and networking opportunities.
Applicants may apply to either or both of the California and U-M programs. Selections are made by independent committees, one on each campus. The program at U-M has attracted an exceptionally strong group of candidates each year.
Each candidate is expected to identify a faculty member who has been contacted in advance of the application and is willing to serve as a mentor. 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. Seventeen former fellows became assistant professors at U-M.
