Research Fellow in Indigenous Community Wellbeing

Final date to receive applications

Final date to receive applications:
April 1, 2026
. Application portal will close at 11:59pm Boston time on Wednesday, April 1.

School:
Harvard Medical School

Department/Area:
Global Health and Social Medicine

Title:

Postdoctoral Fellow, Indigenous Wellness 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.

• Advance research projects, analyze associated data, write manuscripts, and submit these for publication.
• Support existing partnerships and cultivate new partnerships toward efficient and effective action‑research dedicated to mental health services innovation.
• Contribute to the logistics of community‑engaged action‑research, including ethics review, financial reporting, grant preparation, etc.
• Consolidate a relevant network of community‑engaged researchers and Indigenous knowledge keepers who are committed to promoting innovative Indigenous wellness projects.
• Supervise, orient, and train project students, staff, and volunteers who contribute to these efforts.
• Manage virtual meetings and travel to project sites as required.

Start date: June 1, 2026

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.

Professor Joseph Gone ((Use the "Apply for this Job" box below).)

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

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.

• Current knowledge of mental health problems and services in the USA.
• Prior submission for peer‑reviewed publication of first‑authored scientific manuscripts.
• Expertise in research design, including interviews, focus groups, thematic content analysis, systematic/scoping reviews, intervention development, and program evaluation.

• Experience working in or collaborating with Indigenous communities in the USA.
• Record of scholarly publication, including first‑authored scientific journal articles featuring Native American participants.
• Prior supervision of research team and/or…