International mobilityMellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Linguistics
With the sponsorship of the Society for the Humanities, the Department of Linguistics invites applications for a two-year Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship position beginning August 1, 2027. The fellowship carries a stipend of $68,000/year.
The Department of Linguistics seeks applications for a postdoctoral fellow from scholars who take a linguistic approach to problems of broad humanistic significance. Applicants might have expertise in any number of subfields including historical linguistics, semantics, syntax, pragmatics, computational linguistics, phonology, or sociolinguistics. We would like to see candidates who can communicate with and learn from both linguists and scholars in other fields, including philosophy, literature (critical theory, poetics, metrics, gender studies), history (post-colonial studies, prehistoric archaeology, human population genetics) and anthropology (language documentation, endangerment and revitalization, globalization studies).
Postdoctoral Fellows teach one course per semester. Candidates should propose an introductory, 2000-level course designed to appeal to students from across the University, and an upper, 4000-level course designed primarily for Linguistics students and advanced undergraduates in related fields. These courses should be conceived of as smaller seminars and their topics should directly relate to the candidate’s research and integrate linguistic methods in the subfields of either historical linguistics, semantics, syntax, pragmatics, computational linguistics, phonology or sociolinguistics with topics of more general humanistic import.
Applicant Eligibility Requirements
Applicants for the Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship for the 2027-28 and 2028-29 academic years must have received the Ph.D. degree after August 1, 2023, and before June 30, 2027. Applicants who do not have the Ph.D. in hand at the time of application must include a letter from the committee chair or department stating that the Ph.D. degree will be conferred before the term of the fellowship begins. International scholars are welcome to apply, contingent upon visa eligibility.
Application Procedures
The following application materials must be submitted via Academic Jobs Online position #32526 by October 15, 2026.
- Information Cover Sheet (will be generated via your AJO account):
(a) Full name and home institution
(b) Date (or expected date) of Ph.D.
(c) Research interest(s)
(d) Referees’ names and emails - Cover Letter
- Curriculum vitae
- Detailed statement of research interests (1,000 – 2,000 words)
- Course proposal with sample syllabus for introductory, 2000-level course
- Course proposal with sample syllabus for upper, 4000-level course
- One writing sample [30-page limit]
- Diversity statement [optional – submit a separate statement or embed the information into other parts of your application materials]
- Letter of degree conferral (only for applicants who do not have the Ph.D. in hand by January 4, 2027)
- Three letters of recommendation. Please ask referees to upload their letters directly through the link provided by Academic Jobs Online. Letters must be received on or before October 15, 2026.
For further information:
Phone: 607-255-7989
Email: humctr@cornell.edu
