NSF Research Traineeship Program

Welcome to the PEAR research traineeship

Platforms for Exchange and Allocation of Resources (PEAR) is a new program funded by the National Science Foundation Research Traineeship. This program provides funding and resources to admitted and enrolled graduate students (Ph.D. or Master’s thesis students) to help them understand and address the impact of digital platforms on today’s society. Digital platforms are a place for exchanging information, goods, or services between producers and consumers such as Uber, Airbnb, and Venmo.

The mission is to understand digital platforms’ positive and negative economic, social, and environmental effects through interdisciplinary education and research. Northeastern offers a two-year program for trainees from Northeastern University, the University of Houston, and Hampton University to take curated coursework and attend seminars, internships, mentoring, and professional development.

Our vision is of trained professionals who are ready to collaborate across diverse communities and understand how digital platforms impact the equity and distribution of economic opportunities in society: grand challenges tied to sustainable consumption, fair access to goods and services, ethically informed technology design, and the role of technology in re-shaping labor and business practices. These professionals are ready to define and contribute to the future of work at the human-technology frontier and harness the data revolution in multiple sectors (energy, health, transportation, logistics, housing, computing, etc.).