Postdoctoral Fellow in Infrastructure Studies
The University of Michigan announces an eleven-month postdoctoral fellowship position. The
position will start September 1, 2013.
Salary: $50-60,000 per year (depending on negotiated duties), plus a complete and highly
competitive benefits package, $5,000 in discretionary funding, and the opportunity to appoint and
supervise one or more paid undergraduate research assistants to work on projects of your choice.
To apply:
Candidates should not apply via UM’s applicant management system but should instead submit the
following materials electronically to Prof. Christian Sandvig at infra-postdoc@umich.edu
Email Professor Sandvig one PDF file which includes:
1. A statement of interest describing your relevant background and skills
2. A current curriculum vitae
3. The name and contact information for three references. (One reference should be your
doctoral advisor.) Letters of recommendation will only be solicited from finalists.
4. Two publications or other writing samples
Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled.
Position Description
The Department of Communication Studies (in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts) and
the School of Information are jointly offering a postdoctoral fellow position in the multidisciplinary
area of “infrastructure studies.”
The addition of information technology is transforming the way society provides important
infrastructures, including those that support media, telecommunications, power, and transport, but
also those that support knowledge, culture, and scientific data. Thanks to new capabilities in
computing and control, every year our infrastructures claim to be “smarter,” with new capacities for
distributed processing, analysis, sensing, adapting, and autonomous self-improvement. This radical
transformation is well underway, but the assessment of its consequences is still in its infancy. For
example, infrastructure unevenly distributes benefits and capabilities, with complex and sometimes
unforeseen implications for politics, economics, knowledge, and social justice (to name just a few
domains). This position will fund a researcher who will have the opportunity to work alongside
senior collaborators to define and shape this new area of scholarship.
Qualifications:
The successful applicant will have completed the Ph.D. in a related area by the start date with a
dissertation related to information and/or media infrastructures, broadly defined. The ideal candidate
may be trained in science & technology studies, information science, media theory, computersupported collaborative work, and/or human-computer interaction. Applicants should have some
familiarity with qualitative research methods. Applicants who also have some technical background
related to the infrastructure(s) they study are of particular interest, but this is not required.
This position is jointly sponsored by two academic units located on adjacent floors of the same
building. The postdoctoral fellow will have office space in the Department of Communication
Studies and may have the opportunity to teach one course in the School of Information (to be
negotiated). The postdoctoral fellow will pursue his or her own independent research agenda, but will
also be expected to collaborate with the faculty on the convening committee (listed below).
The postdoctoral fellow will be an equal member of the research group. S/he will be expected not
only to conduct independent research, but also to collaborate actively in joint research projects with
faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate research assistants. This responsibility includes regular
communication and coordination with the project team. The postdoc will also be expected to
contribute substantially to publications related to “infrastructure studies,” acting as first author on
some and as a secondary author on others.
Convening committee:
Prof. Christian Sandvig (chair) <csandvig@umich.edu>
Prof. Carl Lagoze <clagoze@umich.edu>
Prof. Paul N. Edwards <pne@umich.edu>