"Postdoctoral Fellow, Digital, Data, and Design Institute - Climate and Sustainability Impact Lab"

Postdoctoral Fellow, Digital, Data, and Design Institute - Climate and Sustainability Impact Lab

Company: Harvard University

Job Location: Cambridge, 02138

Category: Environmental Science, Ecology, and Forestry

Type: Full-Time

School: Harvard Business School

Position Description

The Digital Data Design (D^3) Institute at Harvard is accepting applications for postdoctoral fellows for academic year 2026-2027 to work on research activities at our research labs. D^3 conducts research at the intersection of academia and practice. For more information on D^3, please visit https://d3.harvard.edu/labs. D^3 is looking for candidates with diverse backgrounds and/or new perspectives. There are no teaching requirements for these open positions.

The D^3 Climate and Sustainability Impact Lab, co-led by Professors George Serafeim, Michael Toffel, and Peter Tufano, is looking for a postdoctoral fellow with demonstrated research interests in climate and sustainability. The mission of the Climate and Sustainability Impact Lab is to advance our understanding of how digital transformation and the use of artificial intelligence in management and governance practices deliver measurable financial, environmental, and social impacts. While we welcome applicants working on a wide range of topics, in the coming year the Lab's activities will include a focus on new products, services, and businesses that promote decarbonization and/or climate adaptation, and climate finance-especially how climate-induced risks might be shared between insurers, governments, and households.

Candidates should have some familiarity with some or all of the following:

• Causal analysis and experimental design: difference-in-differences and fixed effects models, instrumental variables, treatment selection, power analysis, analysis of attrition and non-compliance, analysis of heterogenous effects and interference;
• Designing lab experiments, field experiments, and/or surveys;
• Programming/scripting knowledge suitable for processing raw data for analysis (e.g., text manipulation);
• One or more computational environments for statistical analysis (e.g., MATLAB, R, or Stata);
• Creating and managing very large datasets;
• Machine learning skills.

Basic Qualifications

• A Ph.D. in any business discipline, organizational behavior, economics, statistics, environmental or climate studies, or another field. All degree requirements must be satisfied prior to the fellowship start date.
• It is not a requirement to have a degree in climate or environmental science, only an interest or work that relates to climate and sustainability.
• Strong team player with excellent communication skills.

PLEASE NOTE: If you have obtained your Ph.D. in the past 12 months you must be able to provide a certificate of completion from the degree-granting institution OR a letter from the institution's Registrar stating all requirements for the degree have been successfully completed and should verify the date the degree has been conferred. No exceptions.

Special Instructions

Application Details:

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Please apply via the ARIeS system. Please do not contact lab faculty; if you have any questions, please contact d3@harvard.edu.

All applications should include the following:

• Curriculum vitae
• Copy of academic records (unofficial records are acceptable)
• 2-page research statement
• Two research papers
• Contact details of at least two references

Candidates may be asked to do an interview and present their research as part of the search process.

Additional Information:

This is a term position starting July 2026 and ending on June 30, 2027 with potential for re-appointment for a second year based on performance and funding. Relocation funding not provided.

This role is offered as a hybrid (some combination of onsite and remote) where you are required to be onsite at our Boston, MA based campus. Specific days and schedule will be determined between you and the lab PIs.

Contact Information

Kate de Stadler

Recruiting Manager, Research Staff Services

HARVARD | BUSINESS | SCHOOL

Contact Email: kdestadler@hbs.edu

Salary Range

$75,000 annually

Minimum Number of References Required: 2

Maximum Number of References Allowed: 4