Postdoctoral Scholar - Research Associate

The University of Southern California (USC), founded in 1880, is located in the heart of downtown L.A. and is the largest private employer in the City of Los Angeles. As an employee ofUSC, you will be a part of a world-class research university and a member of the "Trojan Family," which is comprised of the faculty, students and staff that make the university a great place to work.

The USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences is seeking a Postdoctoral Scholar Research Associate in the Psychology Department. The largest and oldest of the USC schools, USC Dornsife functions as the academic core of the university, offering courses and advancing knowledge across the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences.

The Everyday Respect research project (https://dornsife.usc.edu/everydayrespect/) is seeking a highly motivated Postdoctoral Researcher to join our NSF-funded interdisciplinary project focused on analyzing police body-worn camera (BWC) footage using cutting-edge AI. This groundbreaking research, conducted in collaboration with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and community partners, aims to transform police training, policy, and community relations by developing novel tools for understanding police-civilian interactions.

The ideal candidate will have a PhD in Computer Science with a strong interest in computational social science, or a PhD in Psychology or Political Science with a deep background in computational methods. You will play a key role in developing and deploying advanced multimodal and multiperspective models, video summarization techniques, and personalized reinforcement learning frameworks to analyze an unprecedented dataset of ~50,000 BWC videos. The successful candidate will work collaboratively with scholars from the Morality and Language Lab, the Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab, the Security and Political Economy Lab, and the rest of Everyday Respect's multidisciplinary team.

Must have PhD in hand before starting the position (ABDs may apply).

Salary range: The annual base salary range for this position is $84,000.00 - $85,000.00. When extending an offer of employment, the University of Southern California considers factors such as (but not limited to) the scope and responsibilities of the position, the candidate's work experience, education/training, key skills, internal peer equity, federal, state and local laws, contractual stipulations, grant funding, as well as external market and organizational considerations.

Performs other related duties as assigned or requested. The university reserves the right to add or change duties at any time.

Required Documents and Additional Information:

• Resume, cover letter, writing sample, research statement and three letters of recommendation (may be uploaded as one file). Please do not submit your application without these documents.
• Application Deadline: February 1 with applications reviewed on a rolling basis starting October 15.
• Anticipated Start Date: No later than August 15, 2026, with the option to start as early as January 9, 2026.
• Questions about this position can be directed to Benjamin Graham (benjamag@usc.edu) or Morteza Dehghani (mdehghan@usc.edu).