The Aerial History Project is a multi-institution collaboration that aims to extract long-run data on human development and environmental change from an archive of historical aerial photographs. The archive surveys more than 60 developing countries repeatedly from the 1940s through the 1990s, providing a window back in time to observe large-scale, structural transformations in economic development, population growth, political institutions, and natural resources over the 20th century. Our team is developing a pipeline to digitize the photographs, assemble them into basemaps resembling modern satellite imagery, and extract structured information such as maps of land cover, infrastructure, and population. The project is co-led by Solomon Hsiang at UC Berkeley, Andreas Madestam and Anna Tompsett at Stockholm University, and Hannah Druckenmiller at Caltech.

We seek postdoctoral scholars to lead innovative projects that make use of our dataset to study the long-run causes and consequences of human development and environmental change. We invite applicants with interests and expertise in the following fields. Exceptional candidates from other fields will also be considered.  

• Economic growth and development
• Measuring inequality
• Demography and migration
• Urban form, growth, and/or economics
• Natural resource or climate economics
• Land degradation and abandonment  

The appointment is for 2-3 years and could be at UC Berkeley, Caltech, or Stockholm University (location is to be mutually agreed upon by the candidate and PIs). Applications will be reviewed starting on December 1, 2023. 

Application requirements:

• Cover letter
• CV
• Sample research paper
• Letters of recommendation (2)

Please email your application materials to hdruck@caltech.edu , using the subject line “Aerial History Postdoctoral Scholar.” Letter writers should email their references directly to hdruck@caltech.edu by December 15, 2023.