Job Description

The School for the Environment (SFE) at the University of Massachusetts Boston  is seeking candidates for a full-time tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Sustainable Food: Aquaculture to begin September 1, 2026. We in SFE believe that aquaculture can provide sustainable food for urban populations that promote equitable health outcomes. Therefore, we invite scholars who study how to improve aquaculture and aquatic (blue) food systems in the context of technology, regulations, impact assessment (LCA analyses, blue carbon economy, etc), and / or social dimensions (including but not limited to producer behavior, traditional ecological knowledge, and equity) to apply to join us to advance human and environmental health.

The School for the Environment’s mission is to examine the natural world and explore diverse challenges in natural, built, and social environments, as well as the intersections among them. Using transdisciplinary and equity-informed approaches to drive research, teaching, and action, we expand environmental knowledge and understanding and create cutting-edge transdisciplinary solutions to environmental and social problems in Boston and beyond. Being Boston’s only public research university located on the Boston Harbor waterfront, we are particularly interested in candidates who can immerse aquaculture into their teaching and research activities in an urban setting. Being transdisciplinary, we believe that the preferred candidate will be able to apply their aquaculture work to complement activities and interests of the core and affiliate faculty.

The School for the Environment is growing. This position is one of four Assistant Professor  positions to be advertised for this year, adding to the five new positions we added last year. This candidate will have the opportunity to interact with programs in SFE at the undergraduate (environmental science, environmental studies), master’s, and PhD programs (environmental science, marine science and technology). Additional programs within the School for the Environment include the Urban Planning and Community Development Department, the Stone Living Lab, Urban Harbors Institute (UHI), Mass Bays National Estuary Partnership, Nantucket Field Station, Living on Earth. Opportunities at the University level include the Sustainable Solutions Lab (SSL) and the UMass Boston CANALA (Collaborative of Asian American, Native American, Latino and African American) Institutes. The successful candidate will be expected to develop an active, collaborative, and impactful research program, seeking funding from public and private sources. The successful candidate will participate in graduate training and will receive mentoring within the School for the Environment as well as professional development opportunities.

Responsibilities. The successful candidate will be expected to teach and mentor students across the Environmental Studies and Sustainability BA and Environmental Science BA, BS, MS, and PhD programs.  In addition to teaching and research, the candidate will also be expected to provide service to the School for the Environment, the university and the professional field of study.

Qualifications. Given the transdisciplinary nature of identifying needs and solution creation, we invite applicants with a PhD from a range of fields in natural or social sciences. The ideal candidate should have the ability and / or interest to collaborate in transdisciplinary teams, engage with diverse stakeholders, and integrate multiple disciplines to study complex issues associated with food provisioning for urban areas.

UMass Boston is an urban public research university with a teaching soul, whose impact is both local and global. We are the third most diverse university in the country - more than 60% of our undergraduate students come from minority communities and groups, and more than half of our students are the first in their families to attend a college or university. Thus, our students come to us from richly diverse life experiences and backgrounds; they bring to our classrooms and research settings the robust range of perspectives growing out of the socio-cultural, economic, and historical contexts in which they have lived, along with the challenges they encounter, engage, and strive to overcome. We invite applications from candidates who engage the diverse life experiences of our student body, who appreciate that students bring their holistic selves into the academic setting, and who recognize and articulate how their own life experiences and backgrounds have shaped their journeys, practices, and commitments as researchers, scholars, and educators.

Application instructions: Please apply through the portal with the following information

·    Cover letter (2 pages maximum)

·    CV

·    Complete contact information for three academic references

Application Deadline:  For full consideration, materials should be submitted, by Sunday, November 30, 2025 before 11:59  pm (EST)

For More Information: Michael Tlusty, Professor of Sustainability and Food Solutions, School for the Environment, University of Massachusetts Boston at: michael.tlusty@umb.edu.

UMass Boston is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, we will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations for the hiring process. If reasonable accommodation is needed, please contact HR@umb.edu or 617-287-5150.