RA Position: fMRI + tDCS @UC Davis

Job Link: https://recruit.ucdavis.edu/apply/JPF02120

The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, Davis invites applications for a qualified Junior Specialist for the Psychopathology and Emotion Processing (PEP) Lab (PI: Dr. Laura Tully), part of the Translational Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (TCAN) Group (PI: Dr. Cameron Carter) at the UC Davis Imaging Research Center. 

This position is part of an interdisciplinary set of studies examining the neural mechanisms underlying cognitive control of emotion and response to social stress in healthy individuals and individuals experiencing psychotic illness. Successful candidates will be the study coordinator for a new study using fMRI to examine the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on neural mechanisms of cognitive control of emotion during negative social evaluation in individuals aged 16 – 30 with psychotic illness. Successful candidates will also assist with additional neuroimaging and behavioral studies, and will be involved in all aspects of publishable research activities in the PEP lab, inclusive of literature review, study design and implementation, data analysis and presentation, manuscript preparation, and conference submissions. 

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:

• U.S. Citizen or Permanent Resident. 
• Bachelor’s degree in psychology, cognitive science, or a related field by June 2018 with a minimum of 1 year experience in conducting research studies in a cognitive science discipline (e.g., undergraduate thesis).
• Experience in human subjects research (e.g., participant testing).

ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS:

• Experience using formulas and calculations in excel (or similar). 
• Demonstrated ability to manage data sets in spreadsheet programs or similar (e.g., excel, csv, jmp, spss, MATLAB. 

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Experience in collecting fMRI and/or EEG data in human subjects.
• Experience manipulating datasets in MATLAB and programming experimental tasks using MATLAB and PsychToolBox software.
• Experience writing/submitting manuscripts for peer review.
• Experience with fMRI data analysis software (e.g., SPM, FSL, AFNI, neuroelf).
• Experience conducting semi-structured interviews with human subjects (e.g., clinical assessments).
• Experience conducting cognitive batteries in human subjects (e.g., intelligence assessments, neuropsychological evaluations).