Post-Doctoral Associate Position in Well-Being Benefits of Local Food Purchasing

 We are pleased to announce the launch of FSRI Post-Doctoral Associate-Well Being Benefits of Local Food Purchasing. Click on the link below to view more information. Thank you! 

• Internal Submission Deadline: Sunday, June 7, 2026
• Cycle: 2026

• Description:

Post-doc in well-being benefits of local food purchasing

We seek applicants for a 2-year post-doctoral associate position to work with a multi-disciplinary team of scientists to develop metrics to capture the well-being benefits of local food purchasing. The project is funded by the University of Vermont’s Food Systems Research Institute as part of their broader effort to develop metrics of food system sustainability. This position can be extended to a third-year conditional on performance. The ideal candidate will have strong skills in quantitative social science, collaboration, and communication. 

Qualifications

The candidate should possess the following qualifications:

• PhD in relevant discipline including but not limited to Applied Economics, Sociology, Psychology, Sustainability Sciences, or Public Health
• Strong quantitative analytical skills including but not limited to causal inference design, estimating and interpreting cross-sectional and panel models, and data visualization
• Ability to work with various data types and competence with various statistical packages
• Experience with data management and curation and conducting reproducible research (e.g., version control, well documented code, pre-registration)

Additional skills that are not required but will support candidate’s success as part of the team: 

• Experience working with interdisciplinary teams on food systems or environmental research
• Experience with or interest in research on difficult-to-quantify phenomena (because the well-being benefits of local food purchasing likely include many such factors, such as social connectedness and feelings of cross-species belonging)
• Prior project / lab management skills, including managing students, coordinating research across disciplinary experts, and developing team-based outputs and processes
• Commitment to open science (e.g., making data, research, and scholarly outputs broadly accessible) 

The position is based in Burlington, Vermont. The start date is flexible, but ideally before September 1, 2026.  

 

Application material

Applicants interested can send the following material over email (with the title “Application for FSRI Post-Doctoral Associate” to Emily Belarmino (Emily.Belarmino@uvm.edu). Applications will be welcomed and will be reviewed on a rolling basis from the priority date of June 7th and until the position is closed. 

1. One-page cover letter specifying the candidate’s interest and experience relevant to developing metrics for the project.
2. Full CV, including evidence of publications and, if relevant, efforts to secure grant funding
3. One paragraph response to each of the following prompts:  
1. To give us a better sense of your analytical skills, please highlight and briefly describe two or three quantitative outputs from your CV (peer-reviewed papers, white papers, preprints, etc.) that you believe best demonstrate your skills. How do these outputs demonstrate what you might bring to our team?

2. Given this project’s goal to develop indicators of non-material aspects of well-being, we especially seek a scholar who has experience with, or somehow related to, attempts to quantify difficult-to-measure phenomena of some kind. Please describe relevant experience that you have. We welcome various interpretations and responses to this challenge.

3. What are your primary goals for a post-doctoral position? What would you hope to accomplish? 
4. Name at least 3 references who can be contacted after the initial application review, with a few words about their relationship to you.

For more information on the position, please email Dr. Emily Belarmino (Emily.Belarmino@uvm.edu)  

 

Project summary

Researchers, policy makers, and public health advocates are increasingly interested in local food systems as mechanisms to improve public health. However, little is known about how “buying local” impacts health, especially in ways beyond improving access to nutritious foods. The proposed project develops a set of validated metrics to capture the health benefits of local food purchasing, especially potential well-being benefits (e.g., life satisfaction, positive emotions, joy associated with local food purchasing, sense of purpose, the ability to live in accordance with personal values). Our transdisciplinary research team will accomplish this through three phases of work. First, a systematic literature review and secondary data analysis will identify existing indicators and evidence of association between local food purchasing, non-material well-being, food security, and diet. These results will be used to develop a curated set of health and well-being indicators relevant to local food purchasing. Second, a hypothetical scenario experiment and regional survey will test for causal relationships and evaluate and validate identified indicators at a population-level. Finally, we will utilize a multi-pronged dissemination strategy to share the research findings and resultant indicators with the academic community, community stakeholders, and media. By identifying appropriate metrics to assess health and well-being relative to local food purchasing, this project will support the FSRI’s goal to develop a replicable set of methods for investigating the human/health dimension of regional food system sustainability.