The Network Science Institute is proud to announce that PhD student Erik Weis has been awarded the Platforms for Exchange and Allocation of Resources (PEAR) Traineeship, a prestigious opportunity funded by the National Science Foundation’s Research Traineeship (NRT) program. This highly competitive award provides Weis with two years of comprehensive funding to support his research at the intersection of digital platforms and society.

Widely regarded as the gold standard for training grants, the NSF NRT initiative supporting the PEAR program, funds 28 PhD traineeships at Northeastern University over a five-year period, preparing students with the skillset and knowledge needed for successful careers, while also advancing research that tackles real-world challenges.

PEAR focuses on understanding digital platforms like Uber, Airbnb, and Venmo that facilitate exchanges between producers and consumers. The program's mission is “to understand digital platforms’ positive and negative economic, social, and environmental effects through interdisciplinary education and research”.

As a PEAR trainee, Weis will participate in specially curated coursework, seminars, mentoring, and career development activities designed to prepare him to address “how digital platforms impact the distribution of economic opportunities in society”, and to work across different sectors such as energy, health, transportation, logistics, housing, and computing.

For more information about the PEAR program, visit https://pear.research.northeastern.edu.

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