LONDON’S GLOBAL UNIVERSITY
Job Description
Research Assistant – Clinical & Grade: Grade 6 (salary range £36,832 to
Affective Neuroscience £38,466 per annum incl. London
Allowance) pro rata
Department: Institute of Cognitive Location: 17 Queen Square, London,
Neuroscience WC1N 3AZ
Reports to
Prof. Sarah Garfinkel, Leader of the Clinical & Affective Neuroscience Research Group
Context
UCL (www.ucl.ac.uk), 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 post will be based within the Division of Psychology and
Language Sciences (www.ucl.ac.uk/pals) (PALS) in the Faculty of Brain Sciences. The Division
houses a number of research departments, one of which is the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience
(ICN). 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.
Main purpose of the job
This is an exciting opportunity to join a team, led by Prof. Sarah Garfinkel and Dr Camilla Nord
(University of Cambridge). The post-holder will be expected to carry out research in the area of
HR USE ONLY: Position no:
HERA no:
clinical neuroscience, with a particular focus on emotion and interoception. The post-holder will be
responsible for recruiting and conducting behavioural, interoceptive and other emotion-based tasks
with humans, including those with anxiety and depression. This work aims to understand the
interoceptive mechanisms that help us perceive, understand and regulate our emotions.
Duration: The position is offered for 3 years for the first instance with the possibility of extension.
Duties and responsibilities
To help set up and conduct experiments according to specifications outlined in the grant
under the direction of the Principal Investigators (Dr Camilla Nord and Prof Garfinkel) and
Co-Investigators, ensuring the acquisition of good quality data, including the recruitment and
testing of participants
To help prepare ethics applications
To record and process experimental and questionnaire based data, maintaining a permanent
record of the methodologies and the experiment (including open science practices)
To contribute to the data processing, data analysis, writing, submission and revision of
papers to be submitted to appropriate peer reviewed journals, collaborating with the research
team
To contribute to the overall activities of the research team and the department as appropriate
To contribute to the induction and direction of other research staff and students
General
Follow and actively promote the UCL Ways of Working.
Carry out any other duties within the scope, spirit and purpose of the job as requested by the
line manager.
To contribute to the induction and direction of other research staff and students in the
research group when required.
To follow UCL policies including Equal Opportunities, Ethics, Race Equality, Fire and Health
and Safety.
This job description may be reviewed and be subject to amendment in consultation with the
post holder.
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+ people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women.
Our department holds an Athena SWAN Silver award, in recognition of our commitment and
demonstrable impact in advancing gender equality.
You can read more about our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion here
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/equality-diversity-inclusion/
The UCL Ways of Working supports colleagues to be successful and happy at UCL through sharing
expectations around how we work – please visit www.ucl.ac.uk/ways-of-working to find out more.
………
The advert will close on 7th September 2023 at 23:59 GMT.
If you have any queries about the role, please contact [email protected].
If you need reasonable adjustments or a more accessible format to apply for this job online or have
any queries about the application process, please contact [email protected].
Person Specification
Note to job applicant: copy and paste the following criteria into your “Statement in support of your
application” and describe underneath each criteria how you meet it, giving examples. You will be
scored on how you meet each criteria.
Essential Criteria Assessment method
(Application form/ Interview
/ Practical Test)
Qualifications, experience and knowledge
BSc and MSc/ MRES in Psychology and/or Cognitive Neuroscience Application
Experience using Matlab, R, PsychoPy or comparable software Application/Interview
packages
Experience administering interoceptive tests Application/Interview
Experience collecting behavioural and interoceptive data Application/Interview
Experience with ethics applications Application/Interview
Skills and abilities
Proven ability to run empirical studies in the domain of interoception Application/Interview
and emotion
Experience of working in the context of a research team Application/Interview
Effective written and verbal communication skills Application/Interview
UCL Ways of Working
Demonstrating interest in personal development Interview
Desirable Criteria
Considerable knowledge of interoception with application to emotion Application/Interview
Experience working with, or mentoring, individuals with mental Application/Interview
health difficulties
Experience supervising students Application/Interview
Experience with open science (e.g. evidence of open data, pre- Application/Interview
registration, open code and other materials)
