Join Our Team
Human Security Lab offers credit-based research appointments as well as paid research positions for undergraduates and graduate students at UMass Amherst.
Spring 2024 Research Positions Available for Undergraduates
A limited number of Undergraduate Research Experience Program (UREP) positions are available this Spring at Human Security Lab. Students will support and assist Professor Carpenter and the Human Security Lab research team on a variety of projects relating to human rights, humanitarian affairs, peace and conflict, climate security or global inequality. Human Security Lab is an interdisciplinary research collective focused on communicating science to practitioners on areas of urgent global importance to human well-being.
Students will be assigned to work on one or more Lab projects, which at present include the following:
Humanitarian Disarmament Advocacy Strategies
Women, Peace and Security in Afghanistan
Protection of Civilians in Ukraine
Climate Security
Research activities may include supporting both scholarship (research paper and/or grant development) and practitioner engagement (potentially producing a briefing note in consultation with a particular NGO, UN or government stakeholder) in these areas. Activities to be conducted may include literature reviews, web research, data coding and analysis, taking minutes at meetings and events, and manuscript preparation as well as other clerical activities related to the research process. Students may earn 3 credits per semester and are expected to work up to 10 hours per week including background readings, lab meetings and research assignments.
To qualify for this position you must be a junior or senior with a 3.5 GPA and coursework in the area of human security, broadly defined. Preference will be given to majors in political science, economics, or psychology, members of under-represented groups including BIPOC, gender minorities, veterans and first generation students, and to students who have earned an A- or higher in a class with Professor Carpenter. To apply, send a letter of interest in the body of an email to charli.carpenter@gmail.com, subject heading “Human Security Lab UREP Positions” by December 31 and attach your resume and contact information for two references.
Lab Assistant, 2023/2024
Human Security Lab is hiring an administrative assistant to help coordinating clerical lab activities, events, fundraising and outreach. This individual will support and assist Professor Carpenter with creating content for the website and Twitter feed, researching funding opportunities and grant-writing, creating and disseminating publicity for events, and other administrative tasks as necessary to support undergraduate, graduate and faculty projects on humanitarian disarmament, human rights protection in Afghanistan and Ukraine, and climate change mitigation strategies.
This position involves approximately 5 hours per week for twelve weeks each semester in Fall / Spring. The successful candidate will be a student at UMass with coursework in the area of human security (broadly defined); superior communications, organizational and PR skills and (ideally) familiarity with web design. Preference will be given to members of under-represented groups including racial and gender minorities, first-generation or non-traditional students and veterans. To apply, send a letter of interest in the body of an email by September 14 to charli.carpenter@gmail.com, subject heading “Lab Assistant Position” and include your resume and two references.
Graduate Student Research Grants
Graduate students associated with Human Security Lab are encouraged to apply for a small research grant to support original work on conflict, human rights, or global inequality in Spring 2024.
The Human Security Lab at UMass-Amherst supports a community of researchers interested in human (in-)security, issues around freedom from fear (violence, conflict, human rights abuse, democracy), freedom from want (economic security, food security, climate security, health security), and the role of science in the human interest.
Subject to availability of funding, project costs of between $500 and $2000 can include funding for surveys, travel funding for fieldwork, other direct research costs, or can be used for living expenses to support intensive research and writing toward a dissertation prospectus, grant proposal or publishable paper. Recipients in the last of these categories must not be working more than 20 hours a week for other employers including UMass during the period of the grant, and should include a statement in their budget request to that effect. All recipients will be expected to present their work in progress at the Global and Human Security workshop within the following academic year.
To apply, send a 1-pg description of your project, its theoretical significance, methods and relationship to your wider research agenda to charli.carpenter@gmail.com. Priority for spring 2024 will be given to applications received by December 1, 2023 and to applications with matching funding.