The Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Climate Humanities and Social Justice at the Climate Museum

The Climate Museum seeks applications from humanities scholars who wish to engage the public on climate change and inequality, to fill a one-year full-time Postdoctoral Fellowship funded by the Mellon Foundation. The Fellowship will run from August 1, 2025 to July 31, 2026.

About the Climate Museum

Contending with the climate crisis at scale requires a transformation of our public culture. The Climate Museum, the first museum in the U.S. dedicated to climate change, mobilizes the power of arts and cultural programming to accelerate this crucial shift toward climate dialogue and action, empowering visitors with the understanding that they can take meaningful action for climate justice, creating community for collective action, and popularizing solutions that emphasize justice and equity. The Museum sees cultural work on climate both as a humanistic end in itself and as a means to inspiring action for climate justice and clean energy policies.

In its proof-of-concept phase, which began in 2018, the Museum presented 17 exhibitions, ten of them with partners including the Parsons School of Design, Rockefeller Center, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden; held 355+ events—including panels, workshops, performances, and more; and welcomed 165,000+ visitors. The Museum recently secured a 25,000 square foot permanent home for its exhibitions, programs, and events, which is scheduled to open in 2029. Its free, accessible exhibitions, art installations, advocacy tools, events, and youth programs have received wide recognition in the cultural sector and beyond, and empowered hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and visitors to exercise their agency in the global climate movement.

The Fellowship

The Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Climate Humanities and Social Justice will serve on the team responsible for the development and implementation of Climate Museum programming, including exhibitions, art installations, and public programming. Further, the Fellow will be responsible for developing and teaching a seminar at the intersection of climate, justice, and the humanities at The New School. They will provide critical scholarly vigor and intellectual depth to enrich a climate humanities and justice framework throughout the Museum’s work. The Fellow will be encouraged to propose and help implement creative new approaches to engaging the public on these issues.

The Mellon Fellowship is open to all candidates who have received their PhD in any humanities discipline within the last five years and who have experience in climate and social justice. Although the position is an at-will employment position, the intent is for the Fellow to be in residence at the Museum full-time from August 2025 through July 2026. The Museum’s office is located in New York City.

The Fellowship offers an exceptional opportunity for those eager to work in a dynamic, growing organization at the intersection of culture, climate, and justice and to meet the rising public demand for pathways into climate engagement and action. The position will include hands-on, immersive public humanities experience developing and expanding the programmatic content and public engagement strategy for the first museum in the U.S. dedicated to climate change.

Responsibilities:

The Fellow will contribute to the Museum’s growing cultural activist leadership through scholarly research and program and exhibition development. They will play a key role in continuing to hone the Museum’s focus on the humanities in justice-centered climate programming, a crucial terrain for grasping the situation we face and fostering solutions. Fellows will have the opportunity to cultivate their public engagement skills and advance the work of an organization at a formative moment of growth potential.

The Fellow will receive an orientation on current best practices in climate communications and the Climate Museum’s approach to curation, pedagogy, engagement, and outreach, with additional topics to be added based on the Fellow’s background.

Fellowship responsibilities include:

• Supporting the development of public programming,
• Participating in the curatorial team that will develop the Museum’s 2026 exhibitions,
• Integrating an understanding of the intersections of climate and social justice throughout the Museum’s work, with a particular focus on public programs,
• Co-supervising a part-time Mellon Foundation Undergraduate Fellow in Climate Humanities and Social Justice over the course of their own yearlong fellowship at the Museum
• Conducting research on best practices for outreach concerning the climate crisis and its intersections with issues of inequality and justice, and
• Designing and teaching a seminar for advanced undergraduate and graduate students focused on the practice of humanities at the intersection of climate and justice.

The Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow will collaborate closely with members of the Museum’s public engagement team, including its Director, Curator, Senior Design and Curatorial Associate, Special Assistant to the Director, and Development Coordinator. In addition, as noted above, they will partner with and co-supervise the Mellon Undergraduate Fellow on a range of projects.

Qualifications:

All applicants must:

• Be recipients of a PhD degree in the humanities–and only in the humanities–after August 2020 and by August 2025.
• Be able to work from the Climate Museum’s New York City office with periodic visits to temporary exhibitions and other programming locations from August 2025 - July 2026.
• Have a keen eye toward the role of the environmental and climate humanities in expanding public engagement with climate justice.
• Have an academic background in a traditional humanities field and subject-matter expertise in climate, social justice, or both.
• Have a strong orientation towards collaboration and the success of the team.
• Have a flexible, ambitious, and enterprising mindset.
• Be inclined to kindness and humor under pressure.

Staff members may work additional hours (including some weekends).

To apply, please submit a resume or CV, cover letter, and up to five pages of previously written work (an excerpt of a chapter or essay for example) through the Climate Museum’s Submittable portal. Additional materials may be requested in the application process. Public-facing written work is most pertinent for the writing sample, although public-facing work is not required.

The Fellowship includes a stipend of $85,000 a year; health, dental, and vision insurance; as well as a retirement savings account without matching. Relocation assistance and a modest research budget are also available to the Fellow. The Museum cannot sponsor applicants for work visas. Applications are due by 11:59pm Eastern time on April 30, 2025.

The Climate Museum is an equal opportunity employer, will not discriminate against employees or applicants on the basis of any legally protected characteristic, and is committed to providing access and reasonable accommodations for individuals where required, in employment and in its services, programs, and activities.