Stanford RegLab Postdoctoral Fellowship
Postdoctoral Fellows
Stanford’s RegLab builds the evidence base and technology for effective government. Our interdisciplinary team of engineers, data scientists, social scientists, and legal experts partners with agencies at every level—from federal departments to states, counties, and cities—bringing frontier AI, machine learning, and causal inference to the public sector. RegLab’s work has prompted an overhaul of tax auditing, mapped racial covenants across millions of records, and enabled streamlining of statutes and regulations.
RegLab welcomes postdoc applications to work with us to tackle urgent research questions spanning legal AI, public sector AI, and AI policy and regulation. The postdoctoral fellow is expected to drive forward research progress in core project areas of the lab, developing, evaluating, and applying AI/ML methods to high-stakes governance problems. RegLab's government partnerships surface research challenges that cannot be addressed with off-the-shelf methods, and the fellow will be expected to identify these gaps, propose solutions, and produce publishable work at the intersection of AI and public administration.
Our work is fundamentally oriented toward the societal consequences of AI deployment. The lab’s research on algorithmic fairness in IRS auditing raised national attention to demographic disparities in AI-assisted enforcement. Our AI governance policy work directly shaped federal executive action and state legislation on responsible AI. RegLab trains the next generation of researchers and practitioners to ensure AI in government serves the public interest — equitably, transparently, and effectively.
RegLab actively supports postdocs in preparing for the academic job market, including feedback on research statements, practice job talks, mock interviews, and conference presentation opportunities. Recent postdocs have started faculty positions at CMU (Departments of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Engineering & Public Policy), Cornell Tech, and Yale (computer science).
Appointment Start Date: Flexible depending on candidate degree conferral, with ideal start January 2026 or earlier. Application review will begin October 20, 2026.