2 PhD positions in Psychology, Neuroscience, or related field (each position 100%, 4 years)

The PhD positions are part of a project targeting two prominent factors in adolescents' daily life: sleep restriction (i.e., too little sleep) and caffeine intake. Despite of their prevalent co-occurrence, the combined effects of these two factors on the adolescent brain and behavior have never been investigated systematically. We will combine several techniques (fMRI, EEG, behavioural tasks and questionnaires) to address not only the typical effects expected by consumers (e.g., at the levels of sleep and subjective sleepiness), but also the influences on reward processing and risk-taking. Our data will shed light not only about the efficacy and safety of caffeine in teenagers, but also about benefits and disadvantages of this frequently consumed psychostimulant in youth.

The project is fully funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF. It takes place at the Centre for Chronobiology (Director: Prof. C. Cajochen), which is part of the Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel and University of Basel's Transfaculty Research Platform Molecular and Cognitive Neurosciences (MCN) at the Faculty of Psychology.

Your position

• Experimental set-up of studies
• Recruitment of participants and data collection
• Data analyses and manuscript preparation, manuscript publication
• Presentation of results at national and international conferences

Your profile

• Experience and/or high willingness to work with teenagers and their parents
• Experience and/or high willingness to acquire and analyse EEG and/or MRI data
• Strong interest in sleep research, reward processing, and risk-taking
• A Master's degree (or equivalent) in psychology, neuroscience, biology, medicine, or a related field (at start of project)
• Organisational skills to independently manage a demanding multi-methodological project, including repeated measurements
• Good data analysis skills and experience with statistical methods and software (e.g., R, SPSS, SAS)
• Programming skills or strong interest in acquiring them (e.g., R, Python, Matlab)
• Strong academic writing skills
• Good German language skills to communicate with participants (at least B2 level in the common European framework of reference for languages)

We offer you

• A timely and highly relevant research project, funded by SNSF after independent peer-review
• Joining a stimulating, interdisciplinary, and international research team
• Direct and continuous supervision and support of PhD thesis
• A 100% contract with a salary (before taxes) of CHF 47'040.00 - 50'040.00 (increasing after year 1 and 2)

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Suitable candidates will be invited for an interview.

Salary and employment conditions will be according to the terms of the University of Basel and the SNSF Please note that the contract will initially be for one year and will then be renewed for an additional 3-year period.

Application / Contact

To apply for a position, please send the following as a single pdf to carolin.reichert@unibas.ch : A motivation letter; your CV (including your skills and previous research experience); an example of your academic writing skills (e.g. a chapter of your thesis); two references (at least one should be related to your current or previous professional/academic work) whom we can contact. The earliest begin is April 1, 2022. For further information, please contact: Dr. Carolin Reichert, Centre for Chronobiology ( www.chronobiology.ch ): carolin.reichert@unibas.ch