Emerging Scholar

About the role:
The Emerging Scholars Program is a new initiative of the Mercatus Center aimed at supporting earlycareer classicalliberal thinkers who are committed to becoming compelling public intellectuals. Through the program Mercatus will hire a full cohort of scholars into twoyear paid fellowship roles based onsite in Arlington VA.

Scholar is broadly construed: you might be an academic but perhaps instead you work in policy journalism run a business or do something entirely different.

Emerging is also broadly construed: you might be finishing a degree of some kind but perhaps instead youre looking to shift focus midcareer return to public life or have decided not to retire.

Whatever your background youll be a deeply rigorous thinker working on innovative projects and excited to share your ideas clearly and broadly to further classicalliberal ends.

Responsibilities:
As a member of the program youll be fully embedded in Mercatuss interdisciplinary community. Your knowledge of classical political economy will deepen and youll gain increased ability to communicate the value of applying classicalliberal ideas to social economic and policy challenges. Youll be mentored by leading experts but youll also want to take the initiative: starting conversations running reading groups hosting events and building the Emerging Scholars Program from the ground up as you contribute to daily life at this exciting intellectual hub. Your work will be focused on your individual research projectsomething youre ready to start or keen to continuebut youll also produce regular output across a wide variety of media while receiving support and training tailored to your specific interests and needs.

• Demonstrated commitment to classicalliberal ideas such as individual liberty free markets and limited government.
• Earlycareer or emerging professional who might be a recent graduate midcareer professional seeking a shift or someone reentering public life. No strict age or career timeline.
• Strong intellectual and analytical skills with the ability to think deeply and rigorously about social economic or political issues.
• Clear and effective communicator who is able to share ideas compellingly across various formats and platforms (writing speaking media).
• Focused on an original research project thats welldefined shows strong potential to further classicalliberal ends and is ready to be started or continued.
• Selfmotivator who demonstrates the ability to proactively start conversations lead reading groups host events and help shape a new program.
• Adaptability and eagerness to learn and is receptive to mentorship training and professional development opportunities.

Additional Information:

Applications close Monday May 5 2025 noting that applicants may also be considered for future cohorts.

EEO Statement:We are an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race color religion gender national origin disability status protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.

Employee Benefits:Salary is competitive and will be commensurate with experience. In addition Mercatus provides excellent benefits to all individual employees including full health and dental coverage flexible spending accounts longterm disability and life insurance a 403(b) retirement savings program parking/travel benefits and twelve free credits per year at George Mason University.

About the Mercatus Center at George Mason University:For over 40 years the Mercatus Center at George Mason University has been the worlds premier university source for marketoriented ideasbridging the gap between academic ideas and realworld problems. A universitybased research center Mercatus works to advance knowledge about how markets work to improve our lives by training graduate students conducting research and applying sound economics to offer solutions to societys most pressing problems.