Arnold Arboretum Postdoctoral Fellowships

Employer: The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University

Location: Boston, Massachusetts (US)

Salary: $83,000 annually plus benefits and research funds

Closing date: Jan 1, 2026

Discipline: Life Sciences, Botany/Plant Science, Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, Physical Sciences, Climate Change, Organismal Biology

Position Type: Full Time

Job Type: Postdoc Fellowship

Organization Type: Academia

Job Details

The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University invites early career scientists to apply for a unique opportunity to start a research career as independent postdoctoral fellow while gaining training and connections within the framework of a top-tier academic environment. The Katharine H. Putnam Fellowship in Plant Science supports scientists focused on utilizing the Arnold Arboretum’s living collections of woody plants to study any area of plant science. The Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship supports researchers that tackle any area of global change science utilizing the myriad resources of the Arnold Arboretum.

The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and its urban landscape in Boston are particularly well-suited for global change and plant science research. It is both an outdoor museum of the world’s temperate trees and other woody plants grown in a public open space, all within sight of the Arboretum’s state-of-the art research facilities.

• The living collections feature extensive biodiversity both in terms of number of species represented as well as genetic diversity within species, featuring multiple individuals of the same species collected from the wild in diverse biogeographic regions. Bringing these diverse individual trees and shrubs together to grow under shared conditions allows comparative studies within the ultimate common garden experiment.
• The Arboretum has extensive documentation of its living collections of accessioned plants, historical photos over decades, library archives, herbarium specimens, and climate data collected since 1918, offering a unique and important historical perspective.
• The Arboretum has an urban setting, offering opportunities to explore complex, city ecosystems.
• The Arboretum and its research laboratories and growth facilities are an integral part of a larger ecosystem of research and scholarship conducted at Harvard University.

Deadline: Jan 11

Eligibility:

Applications are sought from early-career individuals with a PhD in life sciences, plant biology, evolution, plant genetics, plant ecology, horticulture, or related discipline. Applicants must have their PhD when they initiate their term at the Arboretum. We strongly encourage applications from groups under-represented in the sciences. Foreign nationals are eligible to apply, but applicants are expected to be fluent in English.

Fellowship Details:

An Arboretum Postdoctoral Fellowship includes a salary of $83,000 per year, health insurance eligibility, and annual support of up to $10,000 for professional expenses including research, travel, relocation to Boston (and up to $2,500 of total budget). Fellows are expected to be in full-time residence at the Arboretum during their 2-year tenure and are provided office and research space. It is not necessary to have a specific faculty host. Fellows can start between July 1 and the beginning of September.

For more information and application instructions:

https://arboretum.harvard.edu/research/programs-and-opportunities/postdoctoral-fellowships-at-the-arnold-arboretum/