Research Fellow - Neuroimaging of Language Processing

About us

UCL is a top-ranked university in the UK for research in psychology; psychiatry & neuroscience. The post will be based within the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences (PALS) in the Faculty of Brain Sciences. The Division houses a number of research departments, one of which is the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (ICN). The successful applicant will be based at the ICN and also the cross-departmental Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL). ICN is an inter-disciplinary research institute, bringing together different disciplines with common interests in the human mind and brain, in both health and disease. The post-holder will be part of the Visual Communication Research Group. DCAL is the leading research centre in the field of Deafness, Cognition and Language in Europe. It is a bilingual centre which brings together leading deaf and hearing researchers in the fields of linguistics, psychology and neuroscience.

About the role

Two Post-Doctoral Research Fellow positions are available in the Visual Communication Group at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience.

• The first post-holder will lead a research programme that uses optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs) to investigate language processing in deaf and hearing children (approx. 4-9 yrs old). The research will investigate British Sign Language (BSL), spoken English (visual/ audio-visual) and written English.
• The second post-holder will lead a research programme that uses fMRI to investigate the neural representations elicited during language processing in deaf adults. The research will investigate BSL, spoken English (visual/ audio-visual) and written English.

About you

Successful candidates for these roles will be required to be enthusiastic, proactive, technically able, and highly collaborative individuals. The ideal candidate will have knowledge of BSL or another signed language to a Level 2 standard. If this is not the case, they will have a clear commitment to reach at least this level within 1yr of being in post (training will be provided).

The post-holders will hold a PhD in Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience or a closely related discipline. They will have experience designing and running neuroimaging studies. They will be skilled in the use of Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) or similar open-source neuroimaging software and they will have programming experience e.g., using R, Matlab or Python. The ideal candidate would also have broad statistical analysis skills and knowledge of language and literacy literature. They will also have a proven track record of writing and publishing scientific articles and a commitment to Open Science principles.

What we offer

As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents, we also offer some great benefits, please search for UCL rewards and benefits.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

As London’s Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world’s talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong. We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL’s workforce. These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; LGBTQI+ people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women. DCAL particularly encourage applications from deaf people.

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