Professor Bruce D. Meyer, the McCormick Foundation Professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School, is seeking to hire two full-time Pre-Doctoral Fellows to join the Comprehensive Income Dataset (CID) Project for a two-year term starting in Summer 2026. The CID links government surveys with an unprecedented set of tax records and administrative program data, with the ultimate goal of being the most comprehensive and accurate income-related dataset ever created for the United States. The CID Project’s research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, cited in influential government publications such as the Economic Report of the President, and featured in media outlets such as the Economist, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, and Washington Post. Pre-Doctoral Fellows will collaborate on research projects that further build the CID and use it to transform our understanding of economic well-being in the United States. Pre-Doctoral Fellows work closely with Professor Meyer and a core team of Ph.D. researchers – Derek Wu (University of Virginia) and Angela Wyse (Dartmouth College) – in all stages of the research process. Other researchers you may work with at the CID Project include Nikolas Mittag (CERGE-EI), James Sullivan (University of Notre Dame), and graduate students at the University of Chicago. As a fellow, you will link large and novel datasets to the CID; use cutting-edge statistical techniques to create more accurate measures of income and material deprivation; conduct sophisticated empirical analyses that have the potential to transform our understanding of economic well-being, poverty and highly vulnerable populations; prepare presentations and manuscripts; interact with outside academic experts and policy leaders involved with CID projects; and ultimately, coauthor papers submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals. The Pre-Doctoral Fellow position is ideal preparation for top Ph.D. programs in economics and related fields. Previous fellows have gone on to attend Ph.D. programs at Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago, the University of California Berkeley, and the University of Wisconsin, as well as obtain a Rhodes Scholarship. We seek Pre-Doctoral Fellow candidates who not only have exceptional technical skills and a proven ability to creatively tackle difficult empirical problems, but who are also passionate about advancing our understanding of some of the most deprived segments of the U.S. population and the programs that serve them. Furthermore, because our work is both highly challenging and necessarily collaborative, it is imperative that Pre-Doctoral Fellows be able to thrive in a team-based environment.
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Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Entry Level
Education Level
Bachelor's degree
Number of Employees
5,001-10,000 employees