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The UC Berkeley Future of Higher Education (FHE) Postdoctoral Fellowship Program seeks applications for a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship program from scholars in any discipline with a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley who have interest in a career in higher education administration.

This two-year postdoctoral fellowship is reserved for scholars who earned or will earn their doctorate from UC Berkeley during this academic year. To apply, a candidate must have completed all requirements for their doctoral degree by August 14, 2026. Fellows are expected to be in Berkeley for the two-year duration of the postdoc.

As a postdoctoral fellowship program, appointments are defined to be 50% research and 50% practice. The 50% research time will be split between institutional and personal research.

Institutional research project(s) will be either established by, or related to, the office or program a postdoctoral fellow is assigned.

Personal research will be flexible for the fellow to further develop research from their graduate studies through preparation for publication, conference presentations, etc.

The percentage of time spent between the two endeavors will be negotiated between the fellows and the hiring units; however, it is the expectation that institutional research will take priority. The specific time allocation will be dependent on the needs and expectations of the units to which the fellows assigned.

The institutional research projects that the fellows will work on may vary in their methodologies, size and scope, individual or team-based nature, etc. In an effort to equip the fellow with the skills and exposure necessary to succeed, we are committed to work with hiring units to provide the fellow training and support, as well as to highlight the skillsets, values, and perspectives they bring. As such, we are particularly interested in applicants who are committed to evolving and adapting to new opportunities and projects, and who recognize the value of institutional research and higher education administration.

In addition to the 50% research focus, there will be a 50% professional practice component to the fellowship. The practice components of the fellowship will consist of exposure to higher education management and leadership by contributing to a variety of assigned tasks related to the hiring units’ priorities. These may include facilitating meetings, managing various projects that are aligned with the strategic goals of the units, managing staff, sitting on committees, or other duties as assigned. The goal of the practice portion of the fellowship is to allow the fellows to gain experience working at a managerial level within specific units and to engage with the dynamics and nuances that come with an administrative role in a higher education setting

Descriptions by Sponsoring Department

CDSS Dean's Office (1)
The College of Computing Data Science, and Society (CDSS) is the newest college at UC Berkeley in more than 50 years. Our Student Services team manages admissions, advising, and student support programs for nearly 4500 students across graduate and undergraduate degrees. Our unit consists of a team of academic advisors, event staff, career counselors, research staff, and folks focused on evaluating admissions applications.

This post-doc role will focus on student data analysis and reporting. The role will report to the Assistant/Associate Dean of Students and work on college-level institutional research, with a specific focus primarily on collection and analysis of student data, program and student evaluation, financial and non-financial reporting, and grant writing to support programs within CDSS. The position manages sensitive student data across functional areas and provides timely analysis, graphic support, and aid in the collection and usage of metrics related to admissions, enrollment, course/program evaluation, program reviews, as well as executive reports and grant writing initiatives for the college. The position will provide lead support to college leadership on data needed for grant, fellowship, and scholarship development. They must demonstrate good judgment in selecting methodology and delivery.

Berkeley Discovery (2)
Berkeley Discovery connects academic learning to real-world applications, helping students link their studies to research, innovation, entrepreneurship and professional pathways while tackling complex challenges. We facilitate this work by creating real-world opportunities for students, supporting graduate student-led projects, and maintaining the Discovery Opportunities Platform — an online directory for internships, fellowships, and more. Our mission is to weave all undergraduates into the fabric of innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship at our university. Berkeley Discovery empowers every student to graduate with confidence, having already applied their talents to real-world challenges.

Are you interested in expanding resources for students (from high-quality mentorship to original research experiences), collecting data to measure student impact (assessment), and/or exploring strategies for improving teaching and learning? The Discovery Team offers an opportunity to contribute to these efforts as part of a campus-wide initiative while expanding and complementing your current research. This is a chance to make a meaningful impact while advancing your academic and professional goals. Our Discovery Hubs are interdisciplinary projects in which graduate student, postdoc, or staff and faculty mentors lead undergraduate teams to tackle high-stakes challenges: from original research and creative works, to startups and industry solutions. This tiered model provides graduate students with independence and executive management skills. It gives staff scientists and other staff experts dedicated support for their work, with students getting real-world experience. At the same time, undergraduates build peer networks and apply their studies to real-world problems in a collaborative environment. Research mentorship looks different across disciplines, and we look forward to welcoming another postdoc to bring their expertise to the creation of new and iteration of existing Discovery Hubs.

L&S Deans’ Office (3)
Letters & Science is the largest college in the #1 public university: the great, big heart of UC Berkeley. We offer a transformative academic experience that is both broad and deep, bridging arts and humanities, social sciences, biological and physical sciences. In L&S, students discover the curriculum they want and the community they need.

The postdoc will support assessment of undergraduate academic programs and policy-related projects that have campus-wide impact at Berkeley. The postdoc will collaborate with senior administration and leadership to drive strategic policy initiatives of the L&S Executive Dean and the L&S Executive Committee, which is charged with the general oversight of the welfare and instruction of the students of the College and serves as the Committee on Educational Policy for the College. The postdoc will design and lead assessments of undergraduate academic programs and policies, make recommendations to leadership, and demonstrate the impact of programs and policies, centering equity and student success. Specific projects may include first-year programs, direct-to-major admissions for transfer students, and advising policies and procedures.

Journalism (4)
The UC Berkeley School of Journalism is a global leader in journalism education, preparing exceptional fact-finders and storytellers to report the stories of our times and hold power to account. At a time of profound changes in the media and challenges to journalism, UC Berkeley Journalism champions press freedom, embraces innovation and expands who gets to be a journalist.

The Future of Higher Education (FHE) Postdoctoral Fellow will play a central role in the development and launch of the Berkeley Center for Journalism Leadership at the UC Berkeley School of Journalism. This is a highly collaborative, applied role at the intersection of higher education, journalism, and organizational leadership. The fellow will work closely with the Dean, faculty, and senior staff to design, pilot, and operationalize key components of the Center, with a focus on translating strategic vision into actionable programs and sustainable infrastructure.

GSI Teaching & Resource Center and Graduate Writing Center (5)
The Graduate Division's GSI Teaching & Resource Center and Graduate Writing Center provide a broad array of programs and services to support the academic and professional development of UC Berkeley graduate students in the areas of teaching and writing. In addition to their respective core missions, these two units collaborate to create and offer courses, workshops, mentoring programs, and materials to support the development of graduate student mentoring skills. Their newest collaboration is the development of a Certificate in Research Mentoring that will launch in 2026-2027.

The FHE Postdoctoral Fellow will assist in the implementation, ongoing development, and assessment of the new Certificate in Research Mentoring program. The goals of the mentoring certificate program are to enable graduate students to:

Receive structured support in the development of research mentoring skills;
Benefit from the resources developed for the Graduate Division's SMART (Student Mentoring and Research Teams) program, in particular, Intentional Mentoring: A Research Mentoring Toolkit for Graduate Students and Postdocs;
Provide evidence of research mentoring skills intentionally developed through coursework, workshops, and an applied research mentoring experience when they are on the job market;
Receive acknowledgment for the contributions they have made to research mentoring on the campus.

UC Berkeley's Office of Ethics, Risk, and Compliance (OERCS) (6)
OERCS is responsible for coordinating and monitoring the University’s ethics, risk and compliance activities, and for developing a culture of accountability in which risk assessment and risk management (mitigation) are part of all campus practices and decision making activities. OERCS assists functional managers across campus with mitigating risk; complying with laws, regulations, and policies; and adhering to the ethical standards of the University, including privacy. OERCS aims, through strategic communication, to relate compliance to the university’s mission, making compliance legible and accessible to the entire campus community.

UC Berkeley's Office of Ethics, Risk, and Compliance would benefit from the support of a creative, flexible, risk and compliance generalist who could support unit leadership across a variety of areas. The OERCS postdoc would be assigned both special projects as well as ongoing responsibilities in support of the campus risk and compliance portfolio. Assignments will be based on current unit and campus needs. OERCS is a collaborative unit that interacts with a wide range of campus partners. The postdoc would have the opportunity to lead, contribute to, and learn about a variety of programs across the risk and compliance portfolio.

Berkeley Underground Scholars (7)
Berkeley Underground Scholars is an academic support program housed within the Division of Equity and Inclusion at UC Berkeley. BUS creates a pathway for incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and system-impacted individuals into higher education by building a prison-to-school-to-career pipeline through a five-pillar program model: recruitment, retention, advocacy, wellness, and career services. BUS currently offers multiple programs to support the recruitment pillar and now intends to bring the Teach In Prison (TIP) program into BUS, which would powerfully complement the existing recruitment programs to higher education. Since 2000, student-led TIP has taken University of California, Berkeley undergraduates to tutor inside San Quentin State Prison. In cooperation with San Quentin’s Warden’s office, the Robert E. Burton Adult School, and UC Berkeley, Cal students have been helping incarcerated students compassionately work toward their academic goals. TIP operates as a learning, organizing, and tutoring space, where TIP members gather weekly for learning sessions, organize to keep the program running, and tutor inside. This new chapter in the development of BUS higher education pathways provides an exciting opportunity for UC Berkeley, unique to higher education, which we hope to study and learn from.

As a BUS/TIP Postdoc, they will be responsible for supporting TIP’s facilitation, operations, and relationship with San Quentin and UC Berkeley. Providing accountability, structure, and guidance, the fellow will guide TIP student facilitators in executing TIP abolition and tutoring curriculum, supporting the development of assignments, coordination of community partners, and maintaining proper standing within UCB’s requirements for student-run courses. The Postdoc will attend regular learning gatherings to support facilitators and members’ learning. Additionally, this position will support TIP’s organizer committee in maintaining the program’s operations, including supporting the Registered Student Organization and Decal registration, organizer training, funding structures, social media presence, and long-term projects. As a BUS/TIP Postdoc, they will work closely with San Quentin to complete tutors’ clearance, training, and scheduling. This position requires a commitment to mentoring undergraduate and graduate students who are tutoring, organizing, and learning around prison abolition. This on-the-ground program work will also be a site of study and evaluation, centrally assessing the efficacy of the program in supporting incarcerated individuals' progress into higher education and what infrastructures in BUS at UC Berkeley are most responsive to meeting the complexities of providing prison education programming.

Graduate Division (Academic Affairs) (8)
The Academic Affairs division within the Graduate Division partners with faculty and staff of graduate and professional programs across campus, including the deans of our schools and colleges, to maintain the world-renowned quality of Berkeley graduate education. We advise on graduate and professional program proposals and administer the Graduate Student Academic Misconduct Policy. As the administrative arm of the Academic Senate’s Graduate Council, the Academic Affairs Unit is uniquely positioned to facilitate research in collaboration with other campus partners to inform academic policy and serve graduate education.

We propose that the Academic Affairs unit serve as a home to host a FHE postdoc to work on a data collection project that examines how academic integrity issues are framed and perceived in this moment where GenAI tools are being adapted by students and institutions alike. The data collected for this project would be utilized to devise and implement interventions focusing on academic integrity as a practice. This project would move beyond a "one-size-fits-all" approach to academic integrity by mapping disciplinary variances in AI use, as well as perceptions of acceptable use by students and faculty. By housing this role, the Division can inform the Graduate Council to develop evidence-based policies that account for the diverse pedagogical norms of the Humanities, Social Sciences, and STEM fields.

The data output will inform current and future policy decisions regarding academic integrity and GenAI use in teaching and research, directly in alignment with Graduate Division’s missions.

UC Berkeley is committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in our public mission of research, teaching, and service, consistent with UC Regents Policy 4400 and University of California Academic Personnel policy (APM 210 1-d). These values are embedded in our Principles of Community, which reflect our passion for critical inquiry, debate, discovery and innovation, and our deep commitment to contributing to a better world. Every member of the UC Berkeley community has a role in sustaining a safe, caring and humane environment in which these values can thrive.

The University of California, Berkeley is an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, or protected veteran status.

For more information, please refer to the University of California’s Affirmative Action and Nondiscrimination in Employment Policy and the University of California’s Anti-Discrimination Policy.

In searches when letters of reference are required all letters will be treated as confidential per University of California policy and California state law. Please refer potential referees, including when letters are provided via a third party (i.e., dossier service or career center), to the UC Berkeley statement of confidentiality prior to submitting their letter.

As a University employee, you will be required to comply with all applicable University policies and/or collective bargaining agreements, as may be amended from time to time. Federal, state, or local government directives may impose additional requirements.

Unless stated otherwise, unambiguously, in the position description, this position does not include sponsorship of a new consular H-1B visa petition that would require payment of the $100,000 supplemental fee.

As a condition of employment, the finalist will be required to disclose if they are subject to any final administrative or judicial decisions within the last seven years determining that they committed any misconduct.

• “Misconduct” means any violation of the policies or laws governing conduct at the applicant’s previous place of employment, including, but not limited to, violations of policies or laws prohibiting sexual harassment, sexual assault, or other forms of harassment or discrimination, as defined by the employer.
• UC Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment Policy
• UC Anti-Discrimination Policy
• APM - 035: Affirmative Action and Nondiscrimination in Employment