Stanford Impact Labs Welcomes 15 New Postdoctoral Fellows

Postdoctoral training at Stanford offers early-stage researchers a distinct chance to cultivate autonomy as they chart their academic journey. For the 5th year, Stanford Impact Labs is pleased to be able to contribute to the robust array of training opportunities for postdocs on this campus. We’re excited to welcome a new cohort of 15 scholars to SIL’s Postdoctoral Fellowship program. 

Over the course of the academic year, these fellows (postdoctoral researchers at Stanford across multiple disciplines) will engage in workshops and activities with SIL to strengthen their capacity to work in partnership with organizations in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. The fellowship also aims to help them deepen the skills required  to design solutions to tough social problems and ensure their research leads to action.

This year’s cohort of scholars represent six of Stanford’s seven schools and span a wide array of disciplines.

Strengthening democracy

José Ramón Enríquez of the Golub Capital Social Impact Lab and the Digital Economy Lab is developing and testing (with several government partners) an open-source platform that helps citizens scrutinize their assumptions and identify areas of consensus, in order to broaden representation and accelerate evidence-based policy adoption.

Paul Lendway of the Stanford Civics Initiative is testing solutions designed to combat democratic backsliding in the United States, including assessing, in partnership with Stanford University, curricula designed to improve students’ civic skills. 

Trust and safety of emerging technologies

Matthew R. DeVerna of the Social Media Lab studies how large language models are transforming our search for information, in order to build a more resilient and trustworthy information environment.

Carmen Amo Alonso of the Autonomous Systems Lab is working to address the unpredictability and risks associated with AI technologies, by developing safer and more predictable AI systems in the aerospace industry.

Improving physical and mental health

Yunwei Chen of the Center on China’s Economy and Institutions develops strategies that provide families in underserved communities with timely, relevant, and targeted support during the critical early years of child development, including as part of the SIL-funded Piloting to Policy project with partners in rural China.

By uncovering mechanisms surrounding people’s beliefs about whether social interactions energize or drain them, Christiane Buettner of the Dweck-Walton Lab plans to develop solutions to combat social isolation and help people build more meaningful connections.

Innovations in education

Youngsun Moon works with the SIL-funded Rapid Online Assessment of Reading team to develop and validate open-access, group-administered literacy assessments, in collaboration with school and district partners working to meet early reading screening mandates.

Zainab Hosseini, as part of the Dweck-Walton Lab, collaborates with the Oakland Unified School District to adapt interventions that promote supportive teacher-student relationships in a way that meets the specific needs of newcomer refugee high school students.

As part of the Language and Cognition Lab, and in close collaboration with partners in Kenya, Rebecca Zhu investigates the efficacy of picture-based learning materials and validity of picture-based assessments.

Human rights and gender equality

Haojie Wang, as part of the SIL-funded Stanford Human Trafficking Data Lab, partners with frontline stakeholders to trace supply chain networks and flag suppliers at high risk of labor trafficking, delivering actionable intelligence for regulatory enforcement and corporate accountability.

Jennifer Jiwon Lee of the VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab explores how cultural beliefs about gender continue to undermine women’s legitimacy, authority, and power in order to inform solutions to support women leaders.

Kiersten Hasenour, also with the VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab, studies gender inequality in the workplace, focusing on how occupations are valued and rewarded based on whether they are male- or female-dominated, as well as how the men and women within those occupations are perceived and treated by others.

Sustainability solutions

At the Stanford Natural Capital Project, Yingjie Li collaborates with partners in cities around the world on strategies for urban planning and policy—helping cities invest in nature as a pathway to healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable futures.

At Stanford Sustainable Systems Lab, Tao Sun works with utility partners and community aggregators to develop a platform that provides power outage risk assessments while evaluating distributed energy resource solutions for end-user adaptation.

As a member of Stanford’s Global Ecology and Climate Solutions Lab, Amber Liang plans to work with government agencies, as well as with underrepresented but high fire-risk communities, on forest and fire management solutions in California.