Research Fellow - Clinical & Affective Neuroscience

About us

UCL, based in Bloomsbury, is a welcoming, inclusive university situated at the heart of one of the world’s greatest cities. UCL is a top-ranked university in the UK for research in psychology; psychiatry & neuroscience. The university hosts one of the largest concentrations of biomedical research in the world. The successful applicant will be based at the ICN. 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 ICN has over 120 staff, including a vibrant body of postdoctoral and postgraduate (PhD) researcher, plus clinical fellows, organised into distinct research groups. The post-holder will be part of the Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Group. Clinical and Affective Neuroscience group investigates how emotion is expressed in body and brain, with a particular focus on the heart, heart-brain interactions and interoception. We aim to understand how aberrant physiological mechanisms in brain and body can underlie altered emotion processing in a variety of clinical conditions including anxiety, PTSD, depression and psychosis.

About the role

This is an exciting opportunity to join a team, led by Prof. Sarah Garfinkel (UCL) and Prof. Camilla Nord (University of Cambridge). The post-holder will be expected to carry out research in the area of clinical neuroscience, with a particular focus on emotion and interoception. The post-holder will be responsible for devising and conducting behavioural, interoceptive and other emotion-based tasks with humans, including those with anxiety and depression. The post-holder will need to have strong programming skills (e.g. Python, R) and will take the lead on analysing physiological data and writing up studies for publication. Experience with computational modelling would also be valued. This work aims to understand the interoceptive mechanisms that help us perceive, understand and regulate our emotions.

About you

We are looking for a postdoc (i.e. with a completed PhD) with expertise in programming (e.g. R, Python) and advanced skills in multi-modal signal processing and psychophysiology. An interest in emotion, interoception, mental health and computational modeling would be an advantage for this post. As this position forms part of a large grant, we are looking for someone with the capacity to work well in a team. This post is open for 1-year in the first instance, but the contract can be extended for up to 4 years. We are looking for someone hard working and helpful to join a friendly and supportive lab.

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+ and gender diverse people in all roles, and women in Grade 9 and 10 roles.

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