"Postdoctoral Scholar"

Postdoctoral Scholar
University of California Los Angeles

Requisition Number: JPF10650

The Rational Altruism Lab invites applications for a Postdoc-Employee position on developing computational models of moral decision-making in social dilemmas. The intended start date is Fall 2026. This role offers the opportunity to contribute to extending resource-rational analysis to moral decision-making, develop computational methods for translating complex ethical theories into simple moral heuristics, and contribute to understanding how bounded minds can make good moral decisions. This project is part of a larger, interdisciplinary project on moral decision-making conducted by the Wise Judgment Consortium (https://wiseminds.uwaterloo.ca), an international team of experts in decision-making, cross-cultural research, computational modeling, wisdom, morality, data science, psychometrics, as well as natural language processing and LLMs.

About the Lab and Department:

The Rational Altruism Lab conducts rigorous, theory-driven research on decision-making, morality, and cooperation. We ask fundamental questions about rationality, altruism, and moral learning with the broader aim of strengthening the scientific foundations for improving societal decision-making for future generations. Our lab culture emphasizes professionalism, collaboration, and mutual support. We value clear goals with accountability, open and direct communication, continuous learning, and open-science practices. To learn more about the lab and our research, please visit our website: https://ralab.psych.ucla.edu/

The UCLA Department of Psychology is renowned for excellence in teaching, research, and its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. It is part of the Division of Life Sciences in the College of Letters and Science, serving a vibrant community of scholars and students.

Key Responsibilities:

• Execute a pre-defined research project on developing resource-rational models of (moral) decision-making in social dilemmas
• Develop, document, and maintain code of computational methods for deriving resource-rational strategies for human decision-making
• Scientific writing and academic publishing
• Evaluate alternative computational models against existing data sets
• Design, implement, and analyze behavioral experiments to test the models' predictions
• Collaborate with lab members and external collaborators
• Assist with mentoring and training undergraduate and graduate research assistants in computational modeling and experimental design
• Assist in lab management and administration

Position Details:

This is a full-time position with an initial two-year appointment, renewable annually thereafter, contingent upon performance and funding, commencing in September 2026 (exact start date is flexible). It offers a competitive salary and benefits package (see Table 23 for the Postdoc Salary Scales for this position). The Rational Altruism Lab is committed to supporting postdoctoral scholars' career advancement through regular mentorship and professional development meetings. The position provides opportunities to publish in top-tier journals, earn co-authorships on publications led by other lab members, present at national and international conferences, contribute to grant proposals, supervise research assistants, and mentor junior researchers. In addition, the position provides opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration and networking within the Wise Judgment Consortium (https://wiseminds.uwaterloo.ca/), an international network of researchers studying wise decision-making with methods from psychology, cross-cultural research, LLMs and natural language processing, as well as data science and computational modeling.

Application Timeline:

Applications received by November 10, 2025, will receive full consideration. Later applications may be reviewed until the position is filled. Short-listed applicants will likely be interviewed in December 2025 and/or January 2026. Reference checks will be conducted in January/February 2026. The first offer will likely be extended in February or March 2026. We envision that the successful applicant will start the position in Fall 2026. The exact start date is flexible.

To apply, please visit: https://recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF10650