Wittig Postdoctoral Fellowship in Feminist Biology

One of the only opportunities of its kind, the Wittig Postdoctoral Fellows Program in Feminist Science offers a fellowship at the intersection of biological/biomedical sciences and feminist science studies. We aim to train the next generation of feminist scientists/feminist science scholars and cultivate an interdisciplinary community of thinkers, practitioners, and advocates. UW Madison has a distinguished history of excellence in these areas and continues to be a dynamic site of research and teaching in feminist science scholarship.

Applicants with a new or recent PhD are invited to apply for this two year, fully funded position. We welcome scholars working at the intersection of feminist scholarship and the sciences, including the life sciences, public health, history of science, science and technology studies, or medicine. Fellows will conduct original research mentored by a UW faculty member.

This research can be feminist topics within existing research programs in the life sciences (e.g., studies of sex and the variability of sex), implementing feminist methodologies in life science research, or historical, philosophical, artistic, and feminist engagements in life science research. Successful applicants will be paired with a mentor among the UW faculty who has agreed to provide guidance during the fellowship period. For a range of examples of stellar candidates, we’ve included some sample profiles below. The postdoc will also take primary responsibility for planning and executing a feminist science one-day conference. Other available resources for training and professional development during your time here include: the Delta Center for Training and Mentorship, grant writing workshops, the Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies, the Feminist Science Reading Group, and more.

The Wittig postdoc is administered through the Center for Research on Gender & Women (CRGW). For further information, contact the Director of the Center for Research on Gender and Women (CRGW), Christine Garlough, clgarlough@wisc.edu.

We can imagine several different academic profiles that would make a candidate well suited to the Wittig Postdoctoral Fellowship in Feminist Biology. These include:

• You have a PhD in a life science (biology, genetics, ecology) and your research interests are specifically about sex/gender (sexual development, sex-linked genetic differences, environmentally dependent sex ratios, etc.). You don’t have any training in feminism or gender studies, but you are eager to learn more about these methods and incorporate them into your work.
• You have a PhD in a social science and some undergraduate training in gender studies (such as a minor). You are motivated to incorporate your undergraduate training with your doctoral training and are excited at the prospect of having a fellowship term to develop your research program in this direction.
• You are a medical doctor who wants to focus your career in providing equitable care in clinical and research settings, and you want to engage with interdisciplinary feminist scholarship to refine your methods before entering those settings yourself.
• You have training in a science studies discipline (history, sociology, or philosophy of science) and you are committed to incorporating feminist insights into your work in those fields. You are interested in being embedded in a life sciences lab at UW Madison for two years in order to engage with scientists whose work is related to your own interests, connecting your work with scientific practice and even making recommendations to the scientists in the lab for how they can incorporate feminist insights into their work.

These are just a handful of examples of ideal candidates, and we encourage applicants whose profiles do not mirror these to still apply. However, we require the following:

• MD or Ph.D. in the life sciences, public health, history of science, science and technology studies, or other appropriate fields.
• The successful applicant will be responsible for ensuring eligibility for employment in the United States on or before the effective date of the appointment. University sponsorship is not available for this position.
• Individuals on temporary or student visas are not eligible. Trainees or scholars in these programs, who are permanent residents of the U.S., must submit a notary’s signed statement with the appointment form certifying that they have (1) a permanent resident card [USCIS Form I-551] or (2) other legal verification of such status. The successful applicant will be responsible for ensuring eligibility for employment in the United States on or before the effective date of the appointment. University sponsorship is not available for this position.

Consideration for this position requires completion of an application, as well as submitting all other materials in pdf format, as described above.  Phone contact may be necessary for finalists.  If you need a reasonable accommodation in order to complete the application materials or participate in a phone conversation, you may contact Christine Garlough.  Note that you are NOT required to indicate whether or not you need an accommodation to perform the traineeship.

An individual with a disability is defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment.  Please see the ADA website for questions and answers about job application accommodations at:  http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/jobapplicant.html#accommodation

We are an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer.