The Brown Institute is Hiring!

The Brown Institute at Columbia is excited to announce two new full-time staff positions — a Director of Creative Research and an “Impact Fellow.”

The Brown Institute was founded 10 years ago with a gift from Helen Gurley Brown. We are a unique, bi-coastal partnership between Columbia Journalism School (CJS) and Stanford’s School of Engineering. We offer grants and development support for original work crossing journalism, media and technology awarding over $1M a year to help teams “follow their passions and experiment with new approaches to storytelling,” to paraphrase Gurley Brown. In the last 10 years, we have funded over 100 projects, supporting nearly 250 people. Some of these grants produced innovative works of journalism, others developed platforms to assist with creativity, and still others explored entirely new forms of expression. 

As we start our next 10 years, we are looking to bring on two new staff members, creative researchers who can help support the activities of the institute and shape our strategy for the future. The two positions are described below and include links to our application site. If you have any questions about these roles or about the Brown Institute, please reach out to browninstitute@columbia.edu.

Join us!


Director, Creative Research

The position of Director of Creative Research is as unique as the institute itself —  as it is one that emphasizes two kinds of creativity. First, to support the granting and educational programs offered by the institute, the ideal candidate will have a history in “media innovation”, designing and deploying new technologies. They will be expected to be an expert in some technology relevant to the practice of journalism or media creation, broadly, and a participant in significant interdisciplinary collaborations around the applications of that technology. Examples might include immersive storytelling platforms like AR and VR, or data visualization and coding.

Second, this person will have an interest in supporting the creative work of others — both overseeing projects funded by the institute, as well as nurturing entirely new kinds of collaborations. In recent years, the Brown Institute has placed greater emphasis on “impactful” grant making, helping teams define their goals, setting and achieving milestones.

This position is supported for a minimum of two years, renewal contingent on the continued availability of funding.

Apply Here

Impact Fellow (Associate Research Scholar)

The Brown Institute is seeking an “Impact Fellow” (in Columbia’s system the position is an Associate Research Scholar) —  someone with a history of “creative research” that expands on traditional forms of journalism and media production, but who also wants to collaborate with institute grantees, as well as CJS students and alumni, inspiring new entrepreneurs working at the intersection of tech and media. The person should have a firm grounding in practicalities (be fluent in at least one programming language, have a history of learning new technological platforms, and have a general curiosity about how technology might shape narrative), and be able to lead their own creative research projects (seek out their own unique stories and explore the use of technology in journalism).

This position reports to the Director of the Columbia side of the institute. In addition to their creative practice, they will work with the Director and Brown Institute staff to aid grantees in identifying resources they may require, including professional development, guidance on interdisciplinary collaborations, and access to other creative professionals either from CJS, Columbia, Stanford or media and tech outlets in New York City and the Bay Area. There will be a particular emphasis on helping grantees think through the sustainability, impact and scalability of their projects. Brown also offers a mix of seminars, panels and informal workshops, all attempting to spark creativity in the application of technology to journalism. The Associate Research Scholar, as Creative technologist,  should be able to help nurture these kinds of events and be excited by coming up with new directions for Brown — the institute will help support these new efforts through various kinds of seed funding.

This position is supported for one year, renewal contingent on the continued availability of funding.

Apply Here