Research Fellow

About us

The Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology undertakes world-leading research and teaching in mental health. It brings together researchers in a range of disciplines such as developmental psychology, clinical psychology, psychoanalysis, neuroscience, health, education, communication, medicine, behaviour and development. The Department is a vibrant environment for both study and research. UCL is the top-ranked university in the UK for research in Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience. You will work in a collaborative team where early career researchers’ career development is proactively supported.

About the role

The purpose of this position is to facilitate the first steps in the development of more reliable and sensitive task-based measures of individual differences in cognition and emotion. Together with the project leads Professor Essi Viding and Profess Nikolaus Steinbeis and collaborators, a successful candidate will develop reinforcement learning and/or self-control measures in young adults, focusing on adaptive task design optimization, temporally sensitive task administration, and deployment of multilevel modelling to the data. This post offers an ideal stepping stone to an able candidate interested in submitting independent future fellowships and has the potential to yield several publications that will be important to the field.

This is a fixed-term role for 12 months in the first instance. The Salary offered as a Research Fellow at grade 7 is £45,103- £46,261 per annum (inclusive of London allowance), calculate pro-rated amount for part-time hours. Appointment at Grade 7 is dependent upon having been awarded a PhD; if this is not the case, initial appointment will be at Grade 6B (salary £41,833 per annum) with payment at Grade 7 being backdated to the date of final submission of the PhD Thesis.

We may close applications early if we receive a high volume of applications. Early application submission is recommended. Interview Date(s) will be scheduled for the period between 15-30 September 2025.

About you

We are looking for an organised, interpersonally skilled individual with a PhD in Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience or similar field. The candidate should have excellent skills in experimental task design, programming, multivariate statistics and scientific writing, as well as some background in mental health research.

What we offer

As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents, we also offer great benefits. Please visit https://www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/rewards-and-benefits to find out more.

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; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women.

Our department holds an Athena SWAN Silver award, in recognition of our commitment and demonstrable impact in advancing gender equality. You can read more about our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/equality-diversity-inclusion/

Customer advert reference: B02-09173

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