Postdoctoral Fellowships

Start Your Career at the Kinder Institute

Newly-minted PhDs in History, Political Science, Government, or American Studies, whose work engages with the complex history and theory of democracy in the United States, can apply to launch their academic careers as part of the vibrant intellectual community housed on the fourth floor of Jesse Hall.

Applications for AY 2026-27 Postdoctoral Fellowships are now closed. AY 2027-28 applications will open in fall.

Postdoctoral Teaching

All postdoctoral fellows teach a 2-1 or 1-2 course load, which typically include survey classes in history or political science and small, discussion-based courses that are part of the core curriculum for the BA in Constitutional Democracy. Postdocs are also invited and encouraged to develop writing-intensive senior seminars for the BA that are thematically focused on a topic related to their research.

Postdoctoral Research

Postdocs are provided with numerous resources to advance book and article projects, including office space in Jesse Hall, a yearly research and travel budget, opportunities to share research with Kinder Institute faculty as part of our regular brown bag and Friday colloquium series, and the chance to invite scholars in their sub-field to Columbia to participate in a book manuscript workshop.

Past Postdoctoral Fellows

Past Kinder Institute postdocs have gone on to tenure-track jobs at NYU, University of Tennessee, Sam Houston State, University of Arkansas, and more; to publish books that have won awards from and been recognized by the Southern Historical Association, the New Yorker, and the American Musicological Society; and to work on the Andrew Jackson Papers at University of Tennessee and James Madison Papers at UVA.

DPAA Research Fellowships

The Kinder Institute also houses two Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Research Partner Fellows who advance the Agency’s mission “to provide the fullest possible accounting for our missing personnel to their families and the nation.”