Postdoctoral Research Associate

Full-time: 35 hours per week

Fixed-term: for 30 months until 31/05/2028

The Opportunity:

We are seeking a postdoctoral research associate to join our chronopsychiatry research team in Edinburgh. The postholder will work on the Wellcome-funded HELIOS-BD project “Lithium's mechanism in bipolar disorder: investigating the light hypersensitivity hypothesis” (PI Daniel Smith; https://www.heliosbd.com/). 

This project will assess a) whether individuals with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder are hypersensitive to evening light stimuli and b) whether lithium works in bipolar disorder by increasing resilience to light-induced sleep and circadian rhythm disruption. The postholder will assist in the recruitment and assessment of patient volunteers with bipolar disorder and healthy controls and will be primarily focused on conducting a range of sleep and circadian rhythm assessments. This will include the collection of original data on mood, sleep, rest/activity rhythms and melatonin secretion, as well as the analysis of data, drafting high quality publications and participation in knowledge exchange and dissemination activities.

This post is full-time (35 hours per week); however, we are open to considering part-time or flexible working patterns.

The post is available for 30 months.

The salary for this post is £40,497 to £48,149 per annum pro-rata if part-time.

Your skills and attributes for success:

• Expertise in the collection or analysis of data on mood or sleep.
• Experience of maintaining a research database.
• Experience in writing and publishing research papers in high-quality journals.
• Excellent interpersonal skills to develop and maintain effective working relationships.
• Strong planning and organisational skills, including ability to work to and meet firm deadlines.

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