Research Associate

Role Description

Professor Lisa Henderson (Head of Psychology, University of York) and collaborators are looking to hire a Research Associate to lead on an exciting new research project, funded by the Huo Family Foundation.

SmartSleep - Waking up to the Effects of Smartphones and Social Media

Adolescents are immersed in a smartphone-dominated digital world with instant access to social media. While this can offer opportunities for connection, mounting evidence points to sleep disruption, poor mental health, and declining cognition. Despite growing concern, policy action has stalled partly due to limited causal evidence. Existing randomised controlled trials (RCTs) face methodological challenges, and mechanistic understanding remains underdeveloped.

Our feasibility and pilot work—featured in Channel 4’s Swiped—suggests that a 21-day SM/smartphone detox can improve sleep, wellbeing, and cognition in teens. Our research also points to sleep as a critical mediator between problematic smartphone use and mental health. We have now received a large grant from the Huo Family Foundation to scale up this research programme to examine the behavioural and neurophysiological pathways linking smartphone/SM use to youth mental health and cognition, focusing on sleep as a key causal mechanism.

This project will comprise a multimethod 3-arm RCT (N=1500 11–14-year-olds) to compare a total 21-day smartphone/social media detox to pre-sleep restriction and typical use. Sleep will be measured via subjective report as well as via wearables and sleep EEG. Utilising physiological methods (e.g., heart rate, galvanic skin response), we will examine how sleep influences emotional reactivity to social media and moderates intervention response. In collaboration with the University of York’s Smart Data Donation Service, we will augment screen time/social media reports and engagement questionnaires with rich and ecologically valid social media insights.

Our hope is that this research will provide policymakers with mechanistic, causal evidence and inform translational strategies—such as collective digital detoxes or pre-bedtime interventions—to promote digital health among young people.

Role

This post will work alongside 2x Research Trainees and 1x Project Administrator. Beyond this, the project, led by Professor Henderson as PI comprises a large and multidisciplinary project team of developmental and cognitive psychologists, social psychologists, psychiatrists, neuroscientists, data analysts, educators and clinical trials experts, as well as health professionals from Health Professionals for Safe Screens UK and The Sleep Charity. As Research Associate on this project, you will be required to:

• Conduct research under the supervision of senior colleagues and to contribute to the production of research.
• Contribute directly to the dissemination and impact of this research.
• Assist in the identification and development of potential areas of research and the development of proposals for independent or collaborative research projects.

The post is to start as soon as possible and no later than June 2026 and is a fixed term contract from January 2026 to December 2028, with the possibility of end date extension with a later start date.

Skills, Experience & Qualification needed

• The postholder will have a PhD in Psychology or a relevant discipline.
• They will have knowledge in one or more topics relevant to the project, and knowledge and experience of a range of research techniques and methods directly relevant to the project.

Full details of the main qualifications, knowledge, skills, experience & qualifications essential to the post are provided in the Person Specification.

Interview date: To be confirmed

For informal enquiries: please contact Professor Lisa Henderson on lisa-marie.henderson@york.ac.uk

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