Three prestigious interdisciplinary Hutchinson Postdoctoral Fellowships are available at Yale to join the Ecosystems Finance and Health initiative (EFH) for a project on “Rethinking how we design and finance solutions to environmentally-mediated infectious diseases in Africa.” We seek PhDs in economics, finance, public health, ecology, statistics & data science or related fields to fill these positions. The three postdoctoral fellows will work as part of a research cluster, including faculty from across the Yale campus, to develop independent research at the nexus of public health, ecology, sustainability, economics and finance. Review of applications will start immediately until the positions are filled, with priority given to applications received before February 21, 2025.

Postdocs will be mentored by faculty across schools and disciplines at Yale, which include Professors Serap Aksoy (Yale School of Public Health), Vanessa Ezenwa (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology), Eli Fenichel (Yale School of the Environment), Stefano Giglio (Yale School of Management), James Hassell (Yale School of Public Health), and Albert Ko (Yale School of Public Health). Possible research topics include (but are not limited to):

1. Synthesizing data to examine the theoretical basis and causal evidence base for ongoing or proposed interventions to mitigate environmentally-mediated infectious diseases in Africa, and working within the context of different case studies, identify strategies that would deliver net health, environmental and sustainability benefits.

2. Investigating different socio-economic and institutional characteristics of institutional and physical landscapes that shape environmentally-mediated infectious disease risk in Africa, with the goal of developing a theoretical framework that identifies conditions such as data constraints, institutions, governance and financial structures necessary for scaling interventions.

3. Using survey and administrative data, project reports, and case studies to analyze the exposure of different financial institutions in Africa to environmentally-mediated infectious disease risks, and the dependencies and impacts of their lending/borrowing/investment practices on the proximal drivers or mitigators of these risks (such as water security, biodiversity loss, and food systems).

Positions will involve substantial quantitative data work and travel to work with EFH collaborators in East Africa. Along with collaborations with Yale faculty, successful candidates will be expected to collaborate with other scholars in the EFH network, including in the U.S., Europe, and Africa.