The Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine (CBSSM) at the University of Michigan, which is led by interim Co-Directors Dr. Brian Zikmund-Fisher and Prof. Kayte Spector-Bagdady, is accepting applications for postdoctoral research fellows in the areas of (a) Bioethics, and (b) Decision Sciences.

The mission of the CBSSM is to improve the practice of medicine by supporting a vibrant interdisciplinary community that provides clinical ethics, research ethics, and ethics education services and generates leading empirical bioethics, decision science, and health communications research.

CBSSM postdoctoral fellows collaborate on established projects and are encouraged to conduct independent research with an emphasis on study inception, manuscript writing, and applying for grants. CBSSM’s resources and collaborative support provide fellows with mentorship, expose them to multiple methodological approaches to research in decision making and bioethics, and enable fellows to build their own research programs. Postdoctoral fellows contribute to the scholarly mission and intellectual life at the Center by regularly attending Center research seminars and working groups and by participating in a rotation on our ethics consultation service. Dr. Zikmund-Fisher leads the CBSSM Postdoctoral Research Fellowship program.

The CBSSM postdoctoral research fellowships in either Bioethics or Decision Sciences are annual appointments that will start in late summer or early fall of 2025 and may be renewed for one additional year contingent upon satisfactory performance and the availability of funding. Salary is competitive and commensurate with experience and education.

Bioethics Postdoctoral Research Fellow

This fellowship focuses on research and clinical ethics as well as empirical research methods. Candidates' area of focus must be in bioethics, although their backgrounds may be in social or natural sciences, humanities, medicine, or law. Active projects in bioethics at CBSSM currently include the ethical, legal, and social implications of genomic medicine, human subjects research ethics, empirical research with relevance to clinical ethics, reproductive rights, deliberative democratic methods in bioethics, resource allocation, and ethical issues associated with learning health systems, among others.

Decision Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellow

This fellowship focuses on understanding and improving the health care communication and decisions made by both patients and providers. Past postdoctoral fellows have included scholars whose research in health care communication and decision making has been grounded in theories and methodologies drawn from social cognition, motivation and emotion, decision psychology, risk communication, human factors, ethics, and economics.

Application Details

Evaluation of CBSSM fellowship candidates will begin on December 16, 2024 and will be evaluated on a rolling basis through January 10, 2025.

• All requirements of the PhD or equivalent terminal degree must be completed before a postdoctoral research fellow appointment can begin.
• Candidates are required to submit three documents with the online application:
  1. Cover letter, including a detailed statement of research interests
  2. CV
  3. Writing sample
• The letter of research interests should identify potential future research topics (although fellows are encouraged to evolve their interests during the fellowship) and should emphasize, in concrete terms, the applicant’s potential fit to CBSSM’s areas of expertise and how the fellowship fits into their overall career
• Semi-finalists will be asked to submit three letters of recommendation, so references should be alerted that letters may be requested in January 2025.
• All application materials (including recommendation letters) should be submitted electronically through the online application form.

About University of Michigan- Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine

The mission of the Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine (CBSSM) is to improve the practice of medicine by supporting a vibrant interdisciplinary community that provides clinical ethics, research ethics, and ethics education services and creates leading empirical bioethics, decision science, and health communications research. CBSSM has five main goals in pursuit of its mission: The goal of the clinical ethics service is to serve as a national model for how to instill a culture of ethical and patient-centered care in a large academic medical center. The goal of the research ethics service is to improve the conduct of health research to fully respect participants, benefit diverse communities, and improve access to evidence-based care. The goal of the ethics education service is to provide classroom and bedside instruction in theoretical and applied clinical and research ethics to students, trainees, and interprofessional health care team members to train excellent health care professionals and researchers and positively impact patient care. The goal of CBSSM’s empirical bioethics, decision science, and health communications research is to apply cutting-edge l...egal and social science methods both to understand all types of medical decision-making processes at individual, clinical, and policy levels and to design and rigorously evaluate ways to improve them. The goal of CBSSM’s vibrant community is to offer opportunities for intellectual interactions, organizational knowledge, staff support, and institutional and external connections to facilitate achieving these goals.

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