Opportunity Insights Predoctoral Fellowship — Fellowship

Opportunity Insights (OI) is a nonpartisan research and policy institute at Harvard University, founded in 2018, that studies economic mobility using large administrative datasets. Its predoctoral fellowship places recent graduates full-time inside the research group directed by Raj Chetty, John Friedman and Nathan Hendren, based at Harvard or Brown. Fellows analyse data, build statistical models, prepare presentations and edit research papers, and often co-author work with faculty and other researchers.

Fellows also help with public-facing tools such as the Opportunity Atlas, the Social Capital Atlas and the Economic Tracker. The post runs about two years from a start date near 1 July, and OI presents it as a bridge between an undergraduate or master’s degree and a PhD in economics or another social science. Hiring happens in two rounds each academic year, one in the autumn and one in the spring.

Benefits & funding

Full-time salaried position at Harvard University. OI states that salary and benefits are competitive with other top predoctoral fellowships; no figure is published on its own pages.
Tuition assistance is listed among the benefits. Fellows may take certain courses for credit where these are needed for PhD admission, such as Real Analysis, and typically audit other courses.
Access to seminars, courses and lab events at Harvard and Brown, with regular contact with the faculty and collaborators attached to the group.
Visa sponsorship for international hires; Harvard’s International Office decides the visa type, for example J-1.
Term of about two years, beginning around 1 July.

Eligibility

An undergraduate degree completed by the start of the fellowship. Final-year undergraduate and master’s students are encouraged to apply, and a master’s degree is not required.
Strong quantitative skills and experience with empirical research methods.
Research experience is strongly preferred, especially programming in Stata, SAS, R and/or Python.
An economics major is not required, but applicants are expected to have a strong interest in and some experience with economics. Backgrounds in mathematics, statistics, programming, computer science and sociology are welcomed.
Open to all nationalities. OI encourages international applicants and Harvard sponsors the visa.
The fellowship is full-time, so it cannot be combined with full-time study.
One application per academic year. An applicant turned down in one round waits until the following academic year to apply again.

Can you apply?

Here's who can apply

Decoded from the official rules. A free account checks them against your passport, degree and age in seconds.

Education required
Bachelor Enrolled · Bachelor · Master Enrolled · Master

Check my eligibility — free

Circlebreaker is a free database of global fellowships, scholarships and programs — every one decoded like this.

We only check the criteria we have data for. Always confirm full eligibility on the official page before applying.

Application process

1
Watch the OI careers page for the round to open; each round is posted with its own job description and deadline.
2
Submit a formal application through Harvard University’s job site.
3
Complete OI’s separate online application form, uploading a CV, unofficial transcripts covering all coursework to date, and a writing sample. Both the Harvard form and the OI form are required.
4
Supply a foreign-language transcript together with an English translation, combined into a single file.
5
Give the names and contact details of three references in the OI form. Letters are not submitted upfront; OI contacts references only for candidates who reach the final stages.
6
Selected applicants complete an empirical data exercise, with a week to return it and an expected workload of five to six hours.
7
A first-round interview and a final-round interview follow, after which decisions are shared.
8
Applicants holding a competing offer can request expedited review at hiring@opportunityinsights.org.

Program timeline

18 September 2025
information session for the Fall 2025 round
1 October 2025
Fall 2025 round application deadline
End of December 2025
decisions from the Fall 2025 round
21 January 2026
information session for the Spring 2026 round
4 February 2026
Spring 2026 round application deadline
End of March 2026
date given in the Spring 2026 job description for sharing decisions
fellowships begin, running about two years
Around 1 July 2026
next round expected, since OI holds a Fall and a Spring round each academic year. Dates were not yet published at the time of writing.
Autumn 2026