Fellows Program

About | Postdoctoral track | Visiting Professionals track | Microsoft Visiting Professor track | Current and Past Fellows | Compare Tracks/FAQs

About

The Center for Information Technology Policy Fellows Program is a competitive, fully-funded, in-residence program that supports scholars and practitioners in research and policy work tied to the Center’s mission. CITP research falls into the following three areas: Platforms and Digital Infrastructure; Data Science, AI and Society; and Privacy and Security. Fellows accepted into this program conduct research with members of the Center’s community — including faculty, scholars and other fellows — across disciplines, and engage in our public programs, such as workshops and conferences. The program offers three fellowship tracks:

• Postdoctoral track: for people who recently received a Ph.D. or doctorate degree
• Visiting professional track: for academics and professionals (e.g., lawyers, journalists, technologists, former government officials, etc.)
• Microsoft Visiting Professor track: for academics

Find additional information and compare each track below.

Application Process

We hire for the Fellows Program each year. Applicants may apply for more than one track. Both CITP and Princeton University place high value on in-person collaborations and interactions. As such, candidates are expected to participate in-person research at CITP.

CITP’s fellows committee begins reviewing applications mid-December every year.  Applications submitted after December 8 (deadline extended) will be considered if the position has not been filled. Contact information for three references must be included in the application materials. References will only be contacted if the candidate becomes a finalist.

Postdoctoral Research Associate

The postdoctoral track is for people who have recently received or are about to receive a Ph.D. or doctorate degree, and work on understanding and improving the relationship between technology and society. Selected candidates will be appointed at the postdoctoral research associate or more senior research rank. These are typically 12-month appointments, commencing on or about September 1, and can be renewed for a second-year, contingent on performance and funding. Fellows in the postdoctoral track have the option of teaching, subject to sufficient course enrollments and the approval of the Dean of the Faculty.

Most postdocs are matched to a specific faculty adviser. Here is a sample of CITP-affiliated faculty and the areas in which they are looking for postdocs:

• Enhancing Public-Key Infrastructure, building on Princeton’s collaboration with Let’s Encrypt (Prateek Mittal).
• Safe deployment of machine learning for public good (Peter Henderson).
• Ethics of AI and social media, using methods from cognitive science, data science, philosophy, and critical science and technology studies (Molly Crockett).
• Building infrastructure (systems, cloud computing, ML) to study the information environment (online behavior, misinformation, etc.) using multimodal and multilingual data (Jacob Shapiro).
• Studying the impact of social media algorithms, particularly on topics such as polarization, extremism, and misinformation (Andy Guess and Jonathan Mayer).
• Machine learning in social settings: handling distribution shift; identifying limits to predictability; strengthening reproducibility; assessing ethical impacts (Matthew Salganik and Arvind Narayanan).
• Developing new methods for auditing machine learning systems (Aleksandra Korolova).
• Labor and social media outreach (Andrés Monroy-Hernández).
• Many CITP faculty are interested in large AI models. Candidates working on this topic have the potential to be considered for a joint appointment with Princeton Language and Intelligence.
• Many CITP faculty are interested in technology ethics. Candidates working on this topic have the potential for collaboration and affiliation with the University Center for Human Values.

Candidates are expected to have their Ph.D. on the start date of the appointment. The appointment will not be finalized, and an exact start date will not be set, until the candidate has successfully defended their thesis or provided proof of their doctorate degree.

Applications for the postdoctoral track are now open and can be found here.

Visiting Professional

The Visiting Professionals track is for professionals who hold an advanced degree —such as a M.A., Ph.D. or J.D. — and will be on leave from their full-time job. This includes professors on sabbaticals or journalists on leave from their newsrooms. This fellowship appointment is roughly nine months long and will begin on or about September 1. However, CITP does offer some flexibility between May 1 and October 1. The primary appointment will be at the rank of “Visiting Research Scholar” or “Visiting Professional Specialist” depending on experience.

In addition to a current curriculum vitae, research statement, and cover letter describing your background, interest in the program, and salary requirements, applicants to the Visiting Professionals track should provide a breakdown of all of the sources of financial support you will receive during the fellowship. This includes sabbatical funding or financial support from your home institution. Upon hire, written proof of employment, leave dates, and salary must be provided by the candidate’s home institution for the appointment period while at CITP.

Applications for the visiting professional track are now open and can be found here.

Microsoft Visiting Professor

The Microsoft Visiting Professor track is for visiting academics who are nationally or internationally recognized experts in technology policy. Appointments are typically for a term of up to nine months with an expected start date in September. The Microsoft Visiting Professor must hold a Ph.D. or J.D., be on leave from their home institution.

The Microsoft Visiting Research Scholar/Professor is expected to collaborate and contribute to CITP’s mission in at least one of the following ways:

1. Teach one course related to their research during their nine-month term, subject to sufficient enrollment and with the approval of the Dean of the Faculty.
2. Envision and lead a conference or a series of workshops during their time at CITP.
3. Collaborate with existing faculty members on research and jointly mentor students or CITP’s emerging scholars.

Please include a proposal in your cover letter elaborating on how you plan to contribute to CITP during your term. For example, if you are proposing to teach, please include details about potential topics you are willing to teach (provide a sample syllabus and reading list). If you are proposing to develop a conference or workshop series, please include a proposal describing the series, potential speakers, audience, and output of the conference. Finally, if you are proposing to collaborate on research with existing faculty members, please describe the joint project and potential mentorship opportunities associated with the project.

The Microsoft Visiting Professor track will carry the title of Microsoft Visiting (Assistant/Associate) Professor in the semester of teaching. Their primary appointment will be at the rank of “Visiting Research Scholar” or “Visiting Professional Specialist,” depending on experience. Typically, there will be one Microsoft Visiting Professor per year.

In addition to a current curriculum vitae, research statement, and cover letter describing your background, interest in the program, and salary requirements, applicants to the Visiting Professionals track should provide a breakdown of all of the sources of financial support you will receive during the fellowship. This includes sabbatical funding or financial support from your home institution.

Upon hire, written proof of current employment, leave dates. and salary must be provided by candidate’s home institution for the appointment period while at CITP.

The application process for the Microsoft Visiting Professor is now open and can be found here.

How the three fellows tracks compare

Can I apply to more than one track?
Yes.

Are fellows on the visiting professionals track expected or required to teach?
No.

Are fellows on the Microsoft Visiting Professor track expected to teach?
There are three options for involvement, and teaching is one of the options.

Is the Microsoft Visiting Professor position open to all faculty ranks?
Yes.

Are there any formatting requirements?
No, there are no formatting requirements for any of the application materials, i.e., font, word count, format of documents.

CITP is committed to building a culturally diverse community, and we are interested in receiving applications from members of groups that have been historically underrepresented in this field. If you have any questions about these position or the application process, please feel free to contact us at . All offers and appointments are subject to review and approval by the Dean of the Faculty.

Princeton University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Current Fellows

2023-24:
Shazeda Ahmed (partial year), Archana Ahlawat, Nia Brazzell, Jordan Brensinger, Ryan Calo, Dan Calacci, Monica Greco (partial year), Benjamin Mako Hill, Basileal Imana, Amna Liaqat, Alice Marwick, Kevin Munger, Nitya Nadgir, Mark Verhagen

2022-23:
Shazeda Ahmed, Archana Ahlawat, Nia Brazzell, Jordan Brensinger, Monica Greco, Kenia Hale, Eszter Hargittai, Klaudia Jazwinska, Amna Liaqat, Katrina Ligett, Jakob Mökander, Sarah Scheffler, Christelle Tessono, and Rebecca Weiss

Past Fellows

2021-22:
Shazeda Ahmed, Kenia Hale, Klaudia Jazwinska, Lauren Kilgour, Arunesh Mathur, Orestis Papakryiakopoulos, Sergey Sanovich, Sarah Scheffler, Christelle Tessono, and Elizabeth Watkins

2020-21:
Shaanan Cohney, Ashley Gorham, Arunesh Mathur, Orestis Papakryiakopoulos, Sergey Sanovich, Paul Schmitt, Carsten Schwemmer, Elizabeth Watkins

2019-20:
Kevin Borgolte, Shaanan Cohney, Ashley Gorham, Danny Huang, David Johnson, Madelyn Sanfilippo, Sergey Sanovich, Paul Schmitt, Carsten Schwemmer, Yan Shvartzshnaider, Ari Waldman, Annette Zimmermann

2018-19:
Gunes Acar, Kevin Borgolte, Barton Gellman, Danny Huang, Kathryn Kleiman, Hans Klein, Guilherme Martins, Nathan Matias, Madelyn Sanfilippo, Paul Schmitt, Yan Shvarzshnaider, Ben Zevenbergen, Annette Zimmermann

2017-18:
Lefteris (Jason) Anastasopoulos, Aylin Caliskan, Roya Ensafi, KY Hong, Joel Reidenberg, Srikanth Sundaresan, Philipp Winter, Elana Zeide

2016-17:
Aylin Caliskan, Roya Ensafi, Brett Frischmann, Bart Gellman, Seda Gurses, Katherine Haenschen, KY Hong, Joel Reidenberg, Philipp Winter

2015-16:
Hadi Asghari, Peter Asaro, Solon Barocas, Joanna Bryson, Vaibhav Garg, Seda Gurses, Homero Gil de Zuniga William Hudson, Young Mie Kim, Eren Kursun, David Levine, Andrea Matwyshyn, Yong Jin Park

2014-15:
Peter Asaro, Solon Barocas, Joseph Bonneau, Roya Ensafi, Dipayan Ghosh, Alex Halderman, David Levine, Lisa Lynch, Andrea Matwyshyn, Helen Nissenbaum, Joel Reidenberg, David Ribes, Raul Rojas

2013-14:
Axel Arnbak, Solon Barocas, Joseph Bonneau, Alex Halderman,  Jah-Juin “Jared” Ho, Merlyna Lim, Jeffrey Tignor, Diego Vicentin

2012-13:
Josh Gottheimer, Alex Halderman, Philip Howard, Gina Neff, Steven Roosa, Bjarne Stroustrup, Jeffrey Tignor, Zeynep Tufekci

2011-12:
Nicholas Bramble, Annemarie Bridy, Benedicte Callen, Alex Halderman, Philip Howard, Ronald Hedges, Bart Huffman, Andrew McLaughlin, Steven Roosa, Christopher Wong, Zhifeng Yang

2010-11:
Susan Crawford, Alex Halderman, Joseph Lorenzo Hall, Ronald Hedges, Adrian Hong, Ronaldo Lemos da Silva, Fengming Liu, Rebecca MacKinnon, Phillip Napoli, Russ Neuman, Frank Pasquale, Steven Roosa, Wendy Seltzer

2009-10:
Devin Desai, Jens Grossklags, Alex Halderman, Joseph Lorenzo Hall, James Katz, David Lukens, Rebecca MacKinnon

2008-09:
Grayson Barber, Alex Halderman, Pablo Hinojosa, Edward Tenner

News About Current and Past Fellows

Former CITP Fellow Orestis Papakyriakopoulos was quoted in What we found when analyzing 1,000 viral TikToks on #Abortion, an October 19, 2022 Opinion piece in the Washington Post.

Former CITP Fellow Kathy Kleiman will discusses her book, Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World’s First Modern Computer, as part of CITP’s November 8, 2022 Tuesday lunch seminar series.

Former CITP researcher Paul Schmitt has a “Simple Software Fix to Limit Location Data Sharing.”

Former CITP fellow Barton Gellman ’82 is featured in episode one, season two of Cookies Tech Security & Privacy. Gellman discusses his own privacy habits and why he doesn’t trust ordinary email or text messages, but also why he’s unable to give up carrying a smart phone despite its ability to track our movements.