The Project

The Department of Global Health and Social Medicine seeks a postdoctoral fellow to support and advance emerging action-research projects dedicated to Indigenous Partnerships for Community Well-Being.

Many Indigenous peoples in the USA experience overwhelming distress stemming from legacies of conquest and dispossession that have led to unremitting poverty. These problems include mental health inequities such as high community rates of trauma, addiction, and suicide. And yet, conventional clinical approaches to helping individuals with psychological distress and disability are not always well-tailored for Indigenous communities. By engaging in participatory fashion with knowledgeable and resilient Indigenous community partners, the Indigenous Wellness project will assess the relevance, efficiency, and effectiveness of mental health and psychosocial helping services and, together with community partners, re-imagine and re-design such services toward greater cultural consonance, therapeutic benefit, and community self-determination. In-depth consultation with community leaders, health experts, and other local knowledge carriers—and circulation of lessons learned through routine academic publication and community dissemination—will be essential to the success of these endeavors. Contributions to scientific knowledge may include formal outcome evaluations of innovative services, as well as more basic research that will elucidate Indigenous experiences and understandings of health, healing, and well-being. In sum, the signature contribution of this activity entails the reflective, collaborative, and documented development of innovative interventions for mental health problems in (post)colonial Indigenous settings in the USA.

Responsibilities

Under the supervision of Prof. Joseph Gone, Faculty Director of the Harvard University Native American Program, and in collaboration with regional and national Indigenous community partners, the fellow will assume mentored responsibility for: (1) advancing research projects, analyzing associated data, writing manuscripts, and submitting these for publication; (2) supporting existing partnerships and cultivating new partnerships toward efficient and effective action-research dedicated to mental health services innovation; (3) contributing to the logistics of community-engaged action-research, including ethics review, financial reporting, grant preparation, etc.; (4) consolidating a relevant network of community-engaged researchers and Indigenous knowledge keepers who are committed to promoting innovative Indigenous wellness projects; and (5) supervising, orienting, and training project students, staff, and volunteers who contribute to these efforts. Ability to manage virtual meetings and to travel as required to project sites, whether regional or national, is required.

Start date: June 1, 2026

Other information:
This project is expected to be ongoing. The research fellow position will be hired for one year, with the possibility for renewal depending on continued funding and exemplary performance.

For additional information regarding the PI, associated research, and project institutions, see:

http://gonetowar.com
https://ghsm.hms.harvard.edu/person/faculty/joseph-gone
http://ghsm.hms.harvard.edu

For additional information regarding the project or the post, please email:
Professor Joseph Gone (jgone@g.harvard.edu)

Applicants must have a doctoral degree in a field relevant to this project (e.g., psychology, medical sociology, medical anthropology, social work, public health). The degree must be awarded before the fellowship position begins. This is a postdoctoral trainee position best suited to individuals who graduated within a month to five years of the start date.

Other requirements:

1. In your cover letter, please describe your long-term career aims, interest in the project, and suitability for the position, specifically referring to the listed qualifications.
2. We ask that you provide reference contact information but not reference letters. We will directly request reference letters for candidates of interest and may do so after the application portal closes.

Rebecca Grow
HMS Global Health and Social Medicine
641 Huntington Avenue
Boston MA 02115

Information regarding postdoctoral fellow salary, which is determined by the number of years post PhD, can be found at https://postdoc.hms.harvard.edu/guidelines.

US Indigenous communities; mental health; social science research