EPP Faculty Recruit

Carnegie Mellon University is an equal opportunity employer.

The Department of Engineering and Public Policy is always interested in talking with potential candidates for faculty positions at any academic level who combine deep technical understanding and skills with modern policy analytic and social science research methods. Our interest is primarily in finding candidates who can combine these two sets of capabilities in studying important policy problems in which technical details are of considerable importance. While less attractive to us, we have also occasionally hired people with non-overlapping technical and policy interests.

Our needs change on a regular basis. Because the community of people who do high quality research in the domain of technology and policy is small, we are always interested in getting acquainted with promising candidates across all the domains in which we work.

Most faculty positions in EPP involve 50:50 joint appointments with traditional disciplinary departments. Because of the unusual academic environment at Carnegie Mellon, which supports and encourages interdisciplinary research, EPP has an excellent track record of successful promotion and tenure for faculty in such joint appointments.

At the moment, we are most interested in finding people for the following positions:

• A joint appointment with CS. Someone to work on problems in information technology and public policy. We have come to believe that the fundamental general policy question in this field is how to develop strategies that allow society to anticipate and manage IT risks without stifling the enormously inventive and productive system of free entreprise and innovation that has driven its rapid advance. It would be nice to have someone whose work could get us leverage on that question. It would also be nice to have someone whose work was relevant to "dual use" issues. Specific problem areas of interest include: economic organization of information systems (strategies to assure competition, issues of network externalities, etc); intellectural property; security and privacy; network management; social vulnerability of information and communication systems; human-machine interfaces; standards for interoperability; information resource equity; social and economic implications of intelligent systems and advanced automation; management of technological innvoation in computer and other information technologies; development of advanced computer aids for decision making, policy analysis and policy research.
  
  
• A joint appointment with Chemical Engineering. We seek someone with deep technical skills and research accomplishment in Chemical Engineering who wishes to spend at least a portion of their time addressing important problems in public policy in which technical details and analysis are of central importance. We are open with respect to specific problem domains but would be particularly interested in candidates with interests in green process design and operations, technical and public policy issues in nano and/or biotechnology, clean and alternative energy technologies, including biofuels, environmental policy and regulation, or issues of industrial structure, innovation, and intellectual property as related to the chemical industry. We are prepared to consider candidates at any level. At a junior level, we will consider candidates with strong technical backgrounds and clearly articulated policy interests. At senior levels, we require a clear track-record of policy-analytic accomplishment.
  
  
• Someone in biotechnology. We are prepared to explore possible joint appointments with the department of Biomedical Engineering, or with the departments of Biology, Chemical Engineering, or Civil and Environmental Engineering. Topics of interest include: studies of the regulatory, ecological, and other implications and consequences of Genetically Modified Organisms; research on the early detection of bioattack and on response strategies for managing the risks of bioterror; studies of how best to balance legitimate conflicting social objectives (civil liberty, privacy, national security) in the use of biometric and genomic technologies; strategies for regulating the creation of genetically engineered pathogens without squelching the innovative spirit that drives the biotechnology industry; development and demonstration of new methods to use incomplete and uncertain toxicological, epidemiological and other bio-information in environmental decision making; policy analysis on the management and use of stem cell research; cloning; genome sequencing, etc.; studies of industry structure, bio-tech related industrial policy and intellectual property; research on issues in informed consent, drug and other consumer labeling; and studies in the provision of computer support to both medical professionals and patients in medical and health decision making.
  
  
• Perhaps someone in energy and environmental systems and policy. Topics of particular interest include technologies and policies for carbon management; clean energy technologies; green product and process design; life-cycle analysis; climate assessment and policy; and regulatory design and improvement.
  
  
• Perhaps a political scientist and/or a resource economist. While the average political scientist would not fit in EPP, we are most interested in finding a political scientist and/or a resource economist who is interested in topics such as regulatory policy, R&D policy, agent-based modeling, management of technology, or other issues related to the problem areas addressed in EPP. Our primary problem in making such an appointment is finding a social science unit in which such a candidate will fit for a 50:50 appointment.
  
  
• Perhaps another joint appointment with ECE. Possible areas include: the structure and economics of the electronics industry; environmental impacts of electronics manufacturing and use; advanced power system technology, system structure and control; design, operation and evolution of critical real time systems such as air traffic control; technical issues in defense policy; telecommunications and information policy; security and privacy; intellectual property; and R&D policy.
  
  
• Perhaps someone else in management of technology, technical innovation, R&D policy. We may be able to cover this area with one of the folks listed above. We've been looking for a long time to find someone who combines good modern economic and/or other social science skills with deep technical knowledge in a relevant problem area. Such folks are extremely rare! We've recently made one hire in this area but we remain interested in talking with others.

While at the moment our greatest need is for engineers who have policy and social science skills, we are also interested in talking with candidates who have the reverse combination and wish to pursue research in which technical issues are important. EPP has worked extensively on issues of risk perception and risk communication. We have also worked on a wide variety of problems in the area of behavioral decision making. We are interested in: problems in valuation such as those associated with valuing ecological and environmental impacts; problems at the interface between organizational behavior and policy formulation and implementation; issues of R&D policy, technology diffusion and adoption; methodological issues involving analysis outside the normal domains of conventional policy analysis (cross-cultural, long time constants, large resources, etc.).

Please send resume, samples of recent writings, and a list of references to: Professor Granger Morgan, Head, Department of Engineering and Public Policy, 129 Baker Hall, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA 15213 (granger.morgan@andrew.cmu.edu).