Postdoctoral Fellowship Programs

President's and Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program

The UC President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (PPFP) and the UC Davis Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (CPFP) offer postdoctoral research fellowships and faculty mentoring to outstanding scholars in all fields whose research, teaching, and service will contribute to the diversity and equal opportunity at the University of California. These contributions may include public service addressing the needs of our increasingly diverse society, efforts to advance equitable access to higher education, or research focusing on underserved populations or understanding inequalities related to race, gender, disability or LGBTQ+. 

Each fall, the program seeks applicants with the potential to bring to their academic careers the critical perspective that comes from their non-traditional educational background or understanding of the experiences of members of groups historically underrepresented in higher education. UC Davis Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellows are selected from the pool of applicants for the University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. The UC Davis Program partners with sister programs sponsored by the UC Office of the President, the University of Michigan, and other UC campuses.

2023-2024 President's and Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellows (and Continuing Fellows)

Christian Alvarado

Christian Alvarado, President's Postdoctoral Fellow

Department: African American and African Studies

Christian is an interdisciplinary historian focusing primarily on the course of decolonization on the African continent during the mid-20th century. He focuses in particular on the event most commonly known as the "Mau Mau Uprising," which accelerated global debates about European imperialism, the ethics of violence within anticolonial resistance movements and the meaning of decolonization itself.

 

José Manuel Santillana Blanco

José Manuel Santillana Blanco, President's Postdoctoral Fellow

Department: American Studies

Drawing on the work of Black, Latinx and Indigenous decolonial thinkers, José Manuel’s work explores the ways Black-, Immigrant- and Indigenous-women-led community struggles across the United States have been foundational to our understanding of racialized social life, ecological violence and resistance across entangled geographies.

Joshua Garcia

Joshua Garcia, President's Postdoctoral Fellow

Department: Land, Air and Water Resources

Joshua’s research focuses on the effects of municipal compost on soil health in urban agriculture. He's broadly interested in studying how both rural and urban farmers can cultivate healthy and biodiverse soils for sustainable crop production in the face of rapid environmental change.

Graduate Studies logo (a bell)

Romina Garcia, President's Postdoctoral Fellow

Department: Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies

Romina’s research is grounded in the experiences of women of color, specifically centering the experiences of Black women within the context of domestic violence.​​​​

Mohamad Marwan Jarada

Mohamad Marwan Jarada, President's Postdoctoral Fellow

Department: Asian American Studies

Mohamad’s research explores how racial subjects in the United States seek recourse — to redress violence, injury and communal fragmentation  — through the police powers that subordinate them to surveillance and scrutiny.

 

Sunaina Keonaona Kale

Sunaina Keonaona Kale, President's Postdoctoral Fellow

Department: Native American Studies

Sunainaʻs current book project on reggae in Hawai'i focuses on Indigenous and Black relationality and formations of Kanaka Maoli, local, and global identities in the music. Her other research interests include the intersections of food sovereignty and music in Hawai'i.​​

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Lea Kenigsberg, President's Postdoctoral Fellow

Department: Mathematics

Lea's work seeks to define and investigate a new algebraic structure on symplectic cohomology, the coproduct.​​​​

JJ Manson

J.J. Manson (Nuučaan̓uɫ), President's Postdoctoral Fellow

Department: American Studies

J.J.’s research focuses on issues around housing, public transportation and environmental sustainability in metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Specifically, J.J. is analyzing the discourses and practices policymakers, activists and community members use to make claims to space adjacent to transit hubs in metro Vancouver. His dissertation is titled, "Indigeneity in urban communities: relationality, dualism, and the lived experiences of Indigenous persons who live in Vancouver and Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada."

Mauricio E. Ramirez

Mauricio E. Ramírez, President's Postdoctoral Fellow

Department: Chicana and Chicano Studies

Mauricio is currently working on a book manuscript titled Painting Solidarity: US Central American Murals of San Francisco, which examines the politics of visibility, solidarity and belonging as seen in the creation of US Central American community murals in San Francisco, California.

 

Denae Ventura Arredondo

Denae Ventura Arredondo, Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow 

Department: Mathematics

Denae’s work focuses on Ramsey-Turán type problems with the use of geometric tools such as polytopes.

 

 

Rachel Carlson

Rachel Carlson, Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow 

Department: Earth and Planetary Sciences

Rachel’s research focuses on the effect of freshwater inputs on ocean acidification in the West Coast region of the United States.

 

 

Antonio de Jesus Torres Hernandez

Antonio de Jesus Torres Hernandez, Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow

Department: Mathematics

Antonio’s research mainly focuses on the areas of discrete mathematics, computational geometry and data analysis.​​​​

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Cuauhtemoc Quintero Lule, Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow

Department: History

Cuauhtemoc’s scholarship examines the expansion of the Nāhuatl language in colonial Mexico.​​​​

Shruti Paranjape

Shruti Paranjape, Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow

Department: Physics

Shruti is interested in the symmetry properties of quantum field theories, which lead to the mathematical properties of their scattering amplitudes.

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Raed El Rafei

Raed El Rafei, Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow

Department: Anthropology

Raed's research examines contemporary, queer, time-based media from the Middle East through an interdisciplinary approach using film and media studies, Middle Eastern studies, queer theory, and ethnography.

 

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  • 2022-2023 President's and Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellows
  • Heba Alnajada, President's Postdoctoral Fellow, History
    Miles Davison, President's Postdoctoral Fellow, Sociology​​​​​
    Frank Mondelli, Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow, Science and Technology Studies
  • 2021-2022 President's and Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellows
  • Jennifer Mogannam, President's Postdoctoral Fellow, Anthropology and Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies
    Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu, President's Postdoctoral Fellow, Native American Studies
    Fantasia Painter, President's Postdoctoral Fellow, History
    Edwin Solares, President's Postdoctoral Fellow, Computer Science
    Connie Abril Rojas, Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow, Evolution and Ecology
    Mirian G. Martinez-Aranda, Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow, Sociology
  • 2020-21 President's and Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellows
  • Giovanni Batz (Gio B'atz'), President's Postdoctoral Fellow, Native American Studies
    Esmat Elhalaby, President's Postdoctoral Fellow, History
    Vladimir Emiliano Diaz-Ochoa, Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow, Medical Microbiology and Immunology
    Alyssa J. Griffin, Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow, Earth and Planetary Sciences
    Prashanth S. Venkataram, Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Application Details

The UC Davis Chancellors Postdoctoral Fellow is selected from the pool of applicants for the University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. The mentor’s letter should address the department’s future hiring plans and the applicant’s potential for appointment at UC Davis.

  • Eligibility
  • Applicants must hold a Ph.D. from an accredited university before the start of their fellowship.  Successful applicants must present documents demonstrating that they are legally authorized to work in the United States without restrictions or limitations.  Individuals granted deferred action status under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are encouraged to apply.
  • Evaluation and Selection
  • Candidates in all fields are evaluated by faculty reviewers in their own fields and in related fields. Faculty reviewers will evaluate candidates according to their academic accomplishments, the strength of their research proposal, and their potential for faculty careers that will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity through their teaching, research and service. Faculty reviewers also may consider the mentor's potential to work productively with the candidate and commitment to gender equity and diversity in higher education. Final selections may be made by faculty review panels or senior academic administrators (provost, vice provost, vice chancellor). Evaluation and selection details for the President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. 
  • Awards, Salary, and Tenure
  •  Awards will be announced in April-May and be made to applicants who show promise for tenure-track appointments on the UC Davis campus. Each award is for a 12-month period in residence, renewable for one year upon demonstration of academic productivity and participation in program events. All salaries will be in accordance with the UC Davis Salary Scale for Postdoctoral Scholars.   The award includes health insurance, vision and dental benefits, paid sick leave, maternity leave, and four weeks of paid time off. It also provides up to $5,000 for research-related and program travel expenses. 
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  •   President's and Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowship FAQ