Embedded EthiCS Postdoctoral Fellow

Embedded EthiCS Postdoctoral Fellow

Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Philosophy, Computer Science, Ethics, Artificial Intelligence, AI Safety & Governance

Embedded EthiCS Postdoctoral Fellowship

The Harvard Program for Embedded EthiCS invites applications for one or more fellowships based in the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics ( ELSCE .) The initial appointment is for one year, from July 1, 2027 through June 30, 2028, with the possibility of annual renewal for up to two additional years, contingent upon satisfactory performance, continued funding, program needs, and required approvals.

The postdoctoral fellows will be expected to spend 50% of their time working on Embedded EthiCS projects (including teaching, mentoring, and engagement activities) and 50% of their time on their own independent research (including dissemination activities).

Harvard’s Embedded EthiCS program is a collaborative, multidisciplinary pedagogical program that embeds the teaching of ethics directly into the computer science curriculum by creating and teaching short ethics modules within courses across the CS curriculum. For details about this exciting program, please see our website . Our previous Postdoctoral Fellows have all moved on to continuing academic positions (you can see whether they landed through our placement page).

The Postdoctoral Fellows will have responsibility for:

• teaching short ethics modules for the program,
• participating in a Teaching Lab that develops ethics modules,
• coaching less experienced Fellows or Teaching Assistants,
• advising an undergraduate senior thesis related to the fellows’ areas of expertise,
• participating in engagement activities with ELSCE , other programs around Harvard and the greater Boston area, and
• serving as liaison with other groups developing computing ethics education programs around the globe.

In addition, Fellows may be invited to teach a Harvard class during the course of their appointment. The Fellows are supervised by the Program Director for Embedded EthiCS, and although they will not officially be members of the Department of Philosophy, they will have a faculty research advisor in the Department and are encouraged to participate in Department activities. The fellows are also encouraged to participate in the many efforts at Harvard to address the social impact of technology through our program’s ties with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights, and the Center for Human-driven AI Research and Methods ( CHARM ), among others.

First and foremost–regardless of research interests or past training–we seek applicants who are enthusiastic about working with computer scientists to develop ethics modules for their courses and who are passionate about building a more ethical and responsible computing ecosystem. They need not have extensive computer science experience themselves, but they should be eager to engage with computer science experts, even if that requires learning and engaging with technical material in that field.

Through our program’s partnership with Northeastern’s Ethics Institute , new Fellows without a background in philosophy of computing who are able to relocate to Boston prior to the start date may have the opportunity to participate in NU’s renowned Summer Training Program to Expand the Al and Data Ethics Research Community (subject to acceptance by and availability in Northeastern’s program ).

Similarly, candidates with a dual background in both philosophy and computing are especially encouraged to apply. They must demonstrate competence to teach ethics (or other normative subfields like political theory, social epistemology, etc.), but ethics…