University of Pennsylvania

Position Title/Short Description

Full Text of JOE Listing:

Tenure-Track Assistant Professor Positions in Social Policy and Applied Data Science and Critical Race and Policy Studies

The University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2) invites applications for two tenure track positions that will begin July 1, 2022. We seek candidates with the capacity for and interest in working across the school’s three master’s programs (Social Policy, Social Work, Nonprofit Leadership), as well its two doctoral programs (Doctorate in Clinical Social Work, and Ph.D. in Social Welfare).

These are open positions, and we welcome all candidates whose research and scholarship relate to Social Policy, defined as a subset of public policy that focuses on solving social problems such as economic and educational inequality, racial and health disparities, and other similar problems through policy. As such, social policy initiatives and outcomes actively attend to social issues of equity, equality, and adequacy. Advancing social justice is a core component of the School’s vision and a mission that unites all of its programs.

The program is looking for faculty who study social policy with a critical focus on inequality and power structures in society. The first position is for a scholar who employs applied data science and whose scholarship may be informed by or engage in critical data studies, critical race and digital studies, critical race and policy studies, new media studies, platform studies, critical HCI, or other areas of critical studies on data and computation, including those studying these issues from a global perspective. Applicants for this position should have a background in data science, econometrics, statistics, quantitative political science, computational social science, computational linguistics, human-computer interaction, societal computing, or other related areas. Of particular interest are scholars doing research in the areas of ethics in AI, data and tech policy, linked administrative data, civic tech or public interest tech, the intersections of data science with social work, politics, economics, public health, and/or criminal justice among others.

For the second position, the program seeks scholars who are informed by or engage critical race studies, critical ethnic studies, LatCRT, Black radical thought, Black feminisms, postcolonial studies, queer studies and queer of color critique, indigenous studies, DisCRT, critical posthumanisms, affect theory, or other areas of critical race scholarship. Applicants for this position should have a background in interdisciplinary social science, humanistic social science, critical legal studies, cultural studies & critical theory.

For both positions, we seek to hire scholars who work in various areas of policy research, the law, political discourse including governmentality, data and tech policy, civic tech or public interest tech, biopolitics, among others. Global scholarship is also of strong interest though not required.

Many opportunities for collaboration exist within the University of Pennsylvania academic community and with health, educational, social service, nonprofit, and government organizations regionally, nationally, and globally.

Any questions can be sent to pjimenez@upenn.edu

Please apply at https://apptrkr.com/2611503 and provide the following in your application:
• Curriculum Vitae
• Cover letter that states why you are applying and your interests in SP2
• Personal statement that provides details of your current and future research and teaching and
mentorship of students, grants, etc.
• Teaching statement that provides your teaching philosophy, including the courses that you
could teach in our programs
• Diversity statement of your commitment to diversity and inclusion, particularly addressing
how this influences your teaching research, teaching, and/or service
• Three samples of scholarly writing
• Three confidential letters of recommendation

Formal review of applicants will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled.