Research Programs

HAI’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program offers opportunities to explore topics, conduct research, and collaborate across disciplines related to AI technologies, applications, or impact.

Fellows will have the opportunity to contribute to the research goals of the faculty/lab/center/research team they will join, in addition to advancing their own scholarship and research skills. In the spirit of cross-disciplinary collaboration and community building, fellows will also be required to engage in HAI programming to develop the skills necessary to further their research, careers, and the mission of HAI: advancing AI research, education, policy, and practice to improve the human condition.

HAI is particularly interested in applicants doing research at the frontiers of artificial intelligence with other disciplines, including but not limited to the humanities, business, education, law, medicine, and physical and social sciences.

Postdoctoral position, faculty mentor Robb Willer

Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), in partnership with the AI for Public Benefit Lab(link is external) (AI4PB), invites applications for a postdoctoral fellow under the mentorship of Professor Robb Willer. The fellow will be the inaugural dedicated postdoctoral scholar in AI4PB and will play a formative role in a growing interdisciplinary research program focused on using artificial intelligence to make a measurable difference in people's lives. The position also includes a secondary home in the Politics and Social Change Lab(link is external) (PASCL).

Stanford and Non-Stanford are welcome to apply!

Postdoctoral position, faculty mentor Philip Fisher

The Stanford Center on Early Childhood and the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI seek a postdoctoral scholar to join an AI-enabled instructional coaching initiative, which advances a broader agenda of AI for high-stakes social interactions.

Stanford and Non-Stanford are welcome to apply!

The Stanford HAI Data Science Scholars Program is a two-year fellowship for exceptional PhD students spanning all seven Stanford schools. The program supports existing Stanford PhD students whose work advances the foundations, applications, and human dimensions of data science and AI. This includes foundational research on methods, models, and theory; applied research across domains such as scientific discovery, health and biomedicine, mental health, language and culture, education, and the arts; and research on the ethical, societal, and policy implications of these technologies.

Scholars are selected for the significance of their research questions, the rigor of their methods, and their commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration. The program is designed to create a critical mass of early-career researchers whose collective work reflects the full breadth of HAI’s mission, spanning scholarly discovery, educational transformation, and societal impact.

Program Activities

• Structured Learning: Scholar-led discussions and presentations, faculty talks, fireside chats with industry experts

• Informal Exchange: Workshops, collaborations, and peer mentoring

• Collaborative Projects: Scholar-led initiatives and potential capstone project

• Professional Development: Training in interdisciplinary teamwork and responsible research

Continuation & Alumni

• Continued participation in year two is based on engagement and program contribution

• Option to pause/move funding for one quarter within an academic year (with adjusted funding)

• Access to a lifelong alumni network of data science and AI leaders across disciplines

Application period is now closed for 2026 

Eligibility & Benefits

• Open to current Stanford PhD students in any field with at least two years left in their PhD program

• Stipend support (~$29K/year + 50% tuition) for two years

• Additional $2,000/year unrestricted research stipend

• Dedicated coworking space in the CoDa building

• Mentorship by Stanford faculty, science advisors, and industry experts

• Community connection with faculty, students, and postdocs across Stanford to shape the future of data science and AI, and build a lifelong interdisciplinary community, including an incredibly diverse alumni network

Note: Funds replace part of the student’s current compensation, allowing half of the scholar’s time (10 hours a week) to be dedicated to the program and their data science/AI research. An advisor recommendation letter is required. Candidates with less than two years remaining may be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Candidate Application

Eligible candidates can apply by submitting a CV, a Letter of Intent (LOI - 2 page max), and optional materials. Criteria:

1. Research Excellence: Demonstrated skills and interests in advancing data-intensive scholarship, foundational data science, and human-centered AI

2. Community Potential: Demonstrated skills and interests in connecting and communicating across disciplines, and contributing to a collaborative community

3. Disciplinary Diversity: Representation across all departments within Stanford’s seven schools

4. (Optional) Links to code, visualizations, articles, creative portfolios, or websites

5. (Optional) Letter of recommendation from advisor, which comments on qualifications and scholars’ research plans

Process

• Faculty review of research quality and disciplinary contribution

• Cohort selection by staff to ensure balance across all program criteria

• Final approval by the institute leadership

Time Commitment Required

• Weekly 2.5-hour seminars (Wednesdays, 9:30 AM–12:00 PM) at least 75% attendance per quarter, in-person

• Participation in scholar-led initiatives

• Engagement with campus-wide data science and AI community activities

• Showcase research project (poster) at our annual conference

Application Period: April–June 17, 2026 

Decisions: Mid-summer; program begins Fall Quarter

DEL is currently seeking Postdoctoral Fellows. Positions focus on key topic areas related to the digital economy. Each hire will have a priority project, led by Professor Erik Brynjolfsson, as well as the opportunity to work with other Stanford faculty and PIs on additional topics. Priority projects will be shaped based on shared interests, available data, and alignment with DEL’s research priorities. 

Stanford’s RegLab builds the evidence base and technology for effective government. Our interdisciplinary team of engineers, data scientists, social scientists, and legal experts partners with agencies at every level—from federal departments to states, counties, and cities—bringing frontier AI, machine learning, and causal inference to the public sector. RegLab’s work has prompted an overhaul of tax auditing, mapped racial covenants across millions of records, and enabled streamlining of statutes and regulations.

RegLab welcomes postdoc applications to work with us to tackle urgent research questions spanning legal AI, public sector AI, and AI policy and regulation. The postdoctoral fellow is expected to drive forward research progress in core project areas of the lab, developing, evaluating, and applying AI/ML methods to high-stakes governance problems. RegLab's government partnerships surface research challenges that cannot be addressed with off-the-shelf methods, and the fellow will be expected to identify these gaps, propose solutions, and produce publishable work at the intersection of AI and public administration.

Our work is fundamentally oriented toward the societal consequences of AI deployment. The lab’s research on algorithmic fairness in IRS auditing raised national attention to demographic disparities in AI-assisted enforcement. Our AI governance policy work directly shaped federal executive action and state legislation on responsible AI. RegLab trains the next generation of researchers and practitioners to ensure AI in government serves the public interest — equitably, transparently, and effectively.

RegLab actively supports postdocs in preparing for the academic job market, including feedback on research statements, practice job talks, mock interviews, and conference presentation opportunities. Recent postdocs have started faculty positions at CMU (Departments of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Engineering & Public Policy), Cornell Tech, and Yale (computer science).

Appointment Start Date: Flexible depending on candidate degree conferral, with ideal start January 2026 or earlier. Application review will begin October 1, 2026.

How to Apply

Submit Required Application Materials to this form:

• Curriculum vitae.

• Cover letter of no more than 1.5 pages describing relevant research, methodological and technical experience, fit with the lab research agenda, and professional goals.

• Two or three published or unpublished research papers or other writing samples.

• Names and contact information for three references. Letters may be requested separately during the review process.

• Note: this form requires a Google account. If you are unable to do this you may email required material to reglab@law.stanford.edu.

Required Qualifications: 

• PhD completed by the appointment start date in computer science, data science, human-computer interaction, social science or a related field.

• A record of rigorous, creative research and the ability to lead projects from design through analysis and publication.

• Strong quantitative or computational research skills.

• Excellent written and oral communication skills, including interest in communicating research to non-academic audiences.

• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively across disciplines and organizations while exercising intellectual and practical autonomy.

• Strong organizational and interpersonal skills and the ability to prioritize effectively in a fast-moving research environment.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with large language models, natural language processing, and agentic workflows.

• Proficiency in Python or comparable programming experience for implementing computational studies and working with large, complex datasets.

• A strong publication record and demonstrated interest in the societal impacts of AI.

Stanford Embedded Ethics is a collaborative program that embeds the teaching of ethics directly into the core undergraduate courses of Stanford’s computer science curriculum. Working in collaboration with CS faculty and graduate students, fellows create curricular materials, course assignments, and teach ethics modules in CS courses. The fellows also participate in the intellectual life of the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society and Stanford HAI.

HAI and the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society are offering a 9-10 week fellowship for Stanford undergraduate and graduate students to engage in the technology ethics and policy field as it intersects with public policy and social impact.

The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL) invites applications for the Stanford AI Lab Postdoctoral Fellows Program. These positions will support outstanding candidates to advance ground breaking research with Stanford AI faculty.

Stanford University is one of the world's top universities, and has been a leader in AI since its inception. Stanford is also considered the birthplace of Silicon Valley. SAIL is a fun, dynamic, and community-oriented place, providing many opportunities for learning, teamwork and breakthroughs. We are seeking applicants doing research at the forefront of all areas of artificial intelligence and machine learning, including robotics, statistical machine learning, generative AI, reinforcement learning, computer vision, natural language processing, genomics, healthcare, AI’s societal impact and AI-connected cognitive and neuroscience. Positions are funded for two years with a possible start date from September 1, 2026 to Jan 1, 2027. Applicants must have completed their Ph.D. before they start the fellowship.

How to Apply

All applications should be submitted here (Note: This requires a Google Account so that documents can be uploaded. If you are unable to do this, you may email us the required materials at sail-fellows-program@stanford.edu) and should include:

• A curriculum vitae with links to publications and developed software;

• A brief (2 pages maximum) research statement addressing your prior work and the specific future areas that you hope to work on. 

• The 2 or more Professors at SAIL you are interested in working with for the fellowship. 

• Your preferred start date

• The names and contact information of two references.

• Two reference letters should be sent to us the recommender by December 15, 2025 directly through the reference form here.

Review of applications will begin on December 15, 2025, and applicants are strongly encouraged to submit complete applications by that date for full consideration; however, applications will continue to be accepted after the deadline.

The workshop focuses on celebrating and fast-tracking the careers of exceptional data scientists at a critical inflection point: the transition to a postdoctoral scholar, research scientist, industry research position, or tenure-track position. Over the past five years, the Rising Stars workshop has hosted over 180 Rising Stars from nearly 50 institutions.