Research Scientist in LLM for Difficult-to-treat Depression

Location: Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Oxford OX3 7JX

The University of Oxford is a stimulating work environment, which enjoys an international reputation as a world-class centre of excellence. Our research plays a key role in tackling many global challenges, from reducing our carbon emissions to developing vaccines during a pandemic.

The Department of Psychiatry is based on the Warneford Hospital site in Oxford – a friendly, welcoming place of work with an international reputation for excellence. The Department has a substantial research programme, with major funding from Medical Research Council (MRC), Wellcome Trust and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and provides highly rated medical training in psychiatry. The Head of Department is Professor Belinda Lennox.

You will contribute to an innovative research project developing and applying large language models and other generative AI approaches to electronic health records and healthcare data to advance research into difficult-to-treat depression and mental health.

About the Role

The post is funded until 31 March 2027 and is based in the Department of Psychiatry at the Warneford Hospital.  

You will contribute to the development of innovative AI approaches for mental health research by designing neural networks and large language models for difficult-to-treat depression. You will contribute to the design of research materials and data collection, investigate novel machine learning methodologies—including approaches for learning from large-scale image data such as vision transformers—and analyse microscopy and other healthcare datasets. You will also contribute to drafting manuscripts for publication and work as part of a multidisciplinary team to advance cutting-edge research in artificial intelligence and mental health.

About You

You will have an undergraduate qualification in experimental psychology and/or psychiatry with expertise in local LMs with proven experience in adolescents’ mental health, autism/ADHD and anxiety along with an understanding and modelling methods for adolescent psychopathologies. A postgraduate qualification in experimental psychology and/or psychiatry with expertise in local LMs

Diversity

Committed to equality and valuing diversity

Our active Psychiatry People and Culture teams and initiatives including our values and behaviours framework, work to make the Department of Psychiatry as supportive, welcoming and inclusive as possible.

Application Process

You will be required to upload a covering letter/supporting statement, CV and the details of two referees as part of your online application. Please see the University pages on the application process at https://www.jobs.ox.ac.uk/application-process

The closing date for applications is 23 July 2026.

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