"Pre-Doctoral Technical Associate - (Charles Angelucci, Mert Demirer, Namrata Kala, Alexey Makarin, Benjamin Vatter, Catherine Wolfram) 2025/2026"

Posted: 26-Sep-25

Location: Cambridge, MA

Categories: Academic/Faculty

Internal Number: 173538

Professors Charles Angelucci, Mert Demirer, Namrata Kala, Alexey Makarin, Benjamin Vatter, and Catherine Wolfram are looking for highly skilled and motivated individuals to work as full-time pre-doctoral researchers. The appointments will entail close collaboration at all stages of the research process on new and ongoing empirical projects in applied economics. Research projects will be in the fields of health economics, public economics, energy & environmental economics, political economy, and industrial organization, with empirical tools including natural experiments, randomized trials, and structural estimation.

The pre-doctoral position(s) offers the opportunity to gain training in a broad set of economic research topics and statistical methodologies. The chosen candidate will also gain valuable experience analyzing large data sets, working with programs such as Stata, R, and/or Python.

A successful candidate will have:

1. A strong quantitative background and programming skills
2. A long-term interest in pursuing a PhD in economics. Background in economics is a plus, but not necessary – we welcome candidates with strong technical backgrounds who are looking for more exposure to economics. Prior research assistant experience is strongly preferred.
3. An enthusiasm for empirical research, and the ability and interest to learn new skills and take initiative as a project develops.
4. The ability to work independently
5. A Bachelor’s degree with excellent grades

One pre-doctoral position could begin this fall, while the remaining positions would begin in the summer 2025. They typically last for 2 years prior to a PhD program in Economics or related field. It is located at the MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge Massachusetts, with the opportunity to interact with economics undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty. We encourage pre-doctoral researchers to attend seminars, for example. Annual salary is competitive with other predoctoral research positions. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis.

If you are interested, please provide the following documents:

• A one-page cover letter briefly describing your academic career, research experience, coding experience, future goals, and, optionally, any obstacles you’ve faced in pursuing your achievements thus far. Successful candidates will work most closely with one or two faculty members, so please describe your interest in a particular sub-field of economics.
• A CV
• A transcript
• A writing sample. This could be any research paper or term paper that you think best reflects your abilities
• A sample of code(s) which you have written, along with a summary of the outputs it generates (logs/graphs) in a single document
• The names of two references with contact information.

We will be accepting and reviewing applications on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology is an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, ancestry, or national or ethnic origin. MIT’s full policy on Nondiscrimination can be found here.