The National Agricultural and Rural Development Policy Center (NARDeP) is a new federally-funded initiative jointly managed by the nation's four Regional Rural Development Centers. The four centers are hosted by Pennsylvania State University, Michigan State University, Mississippi State University and Utah State University. The NARDeP Center seeks applicants for a post-doctoral fellow position. The fellow will actively engage with the NARDeP national advisory board, stakeholders, and elected and appointed officials to develop and disseminate policy briefs, supplemented with refereed journal articles related to the following broad areas:
* The farm and agricultural sectors * The environment * Rural families, households and economies * Consumers, food and nutrition The position will be filled for twelve months. Through the experience with NARDeP, the fellow will complement the strong disciplinary training of his or her PhD program with exposure to a broad range of social sciences and learning-by-doing in policy dialog and evaluation, grant development and project execution. At the end of the post-doctoral experience, the fellow will have developed a national network of senior academic and policy colleagues from which to launch a successful career as a faculty member or think-tank researcher. The fellow will provide team leadership in the area of quantitative regional economic modeling and be located at The Pennsylvania State University in State College, PA. The fellow will interact virtually with the full NARDeP team, with supplemental travel as needed to domestic professional conferences, policy meetings in Washington DC and the three other RRDC host sites, or to meet with consultants at other universities. The fellow will be compensated at a level commensurate with recent PhDs in his or her field of study, and will have access to health care benefits. Required Qualifications: PhD in a social science field related to the focus area by date of appointment. Demonstrated interest in topics addressed by NARDeP. Demonstrated empirical modeling skills. Strong English written and verbal communications skills. Ability to travel independently by air and drive an automobile. Preferred Qualifications: Academic record of publications related to the issues addressed by NARDeP. Demonstrated ability to synthesize academic and policy inputs from a wide array of sources. Understanding of the land grant university system. Experience living or working in rural areas of the United States. PhD in process or completed within last year, or PhD with strong professional experiences in a related but different area of application (e.g., urban economics, international development economics, health care policy, telecommunications policy, state and local government administration). Individuals applying for the position should expect to begin work within the September 1 - October 31, 2012 window. Individuals who hold ABD status are strongly encouraged to apply but will not be appointed until they have met all degree requirements. Application Procedure: Applicants should submit a letter of application. The letter of application should address how the post-doctoral experience will help the candidate achieve his or her ultimate career goal. Candidates holding ABD status should specify the expected date of degree completion. In addition, applicants should provide a curriculum vita, copy of PhD program course transcripts, a writing sample, and cell phone contacts for three professional references. Review of applications will begin no later than August 22, 2012 and conclude when successful candidates are identified. All materials should be emailed in a single pdf to: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with subject line "Post-Doctoral Fellow Application." Scott
