Postdoctoral Research Fellow – Addiction & Youth Substance Use

• National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research

• Join a university ranked in the world’s top 50

• Collaborate with highly awarded, world-class colleagues

• Fast track your career with our early career academic development program

• Based at our St Lucia campus

About UQ

As part of the UQ community, you’ll have the opportunity to work alongside the brightest minds, who have joined us from all over the world, and within an environment where interdisciplinary collaborations are encouraged.

At the core of our teaching remains our students, and their experience with us sets a foundation for success far beyond graduation. UQ has made a commitment to making education opportunities available for all Queenslanders, regardless of personal, financial, or geographical barriers.

As part of our commitment to excellence in research and professional practice in academic contexts, we are proud to provide our staff with access to world-class facilities and equipment, grant writing support, greater research funding opportunities, and other forms of staff support and development.

About This Opportunity 

We are seeking a talented and highly motivated Postdoctoral Research Fellow to join the world-leading research team at UQ’s National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research (NCYSUR). This is an exciting opportunity to develop your expertise, research capacity and emerging research profile in addiction and youth substance use, and an opportunity to contribute to service and engagement roles and activities.

In this role, the successful candidate will lead research on youth addiction, with a strong focus on alcohol and cannabis use among culturally and linguistically diverse communities. You will work under the supervision of Associate Professor Gary Chan, Associate Professor Janni Leung and Dr. Daniel Stjepanovic on a range of NHMRC-funded research projects (e.g., social media and addiction, AI-assisted intervention) and also under the supervision of the Centre’s Director on projects funded by the Department of Health and Aged Care.

This position will suit someone who is passionate about addiction research and focused on using advanced, novel and diverse research and statistical methods to generate evidence to inform addiction policy.

Key responsibilities include (but are not limited to):

• Produce quality research outputs consistent with discipline norms by publishing or exhibiting in high quality outlets.

• Work with colleagues in the development of joint research projects and applications for competitive research funding support.

• Develop a coherent research program and an emerging research profile.

• Contribute to the effective supervision of Honours and Higher Degree by Research students (as appropriate).

• Effectively lead and develop supervisee performance and conduct by providing feedback, coaching, and professional development.

• Contribute to internal service roles and administrative processes as required, including participation in decision-making and service on relevant committees.

• Begin to develop external links and partnerships by cultivating relationships with industry, government departments, professional bodies and the wider community.

This is a research focused position. Further information can be found by viewing UQ’s Criteria for Academic Performance .

This is a full-time, fixed-term position through to 30 June 2026 at Academic level A.

The full-time equivalent base salary will be in the range $77,324 – $102,945 plus super of up to 17%. The total FTE package will be in the range $90,470 – $120,445 per annum. As this role is covered by an Enterprise Agreement, you will also receive regular remuneration increases – at least once a year.

The greater benefits of joining the UQ community are broad: from being part of a Group of Eight university, to recognition of prior service with other Australian universities, up to 26 weeks of paid parental leave, 17.5% annual leave loading, flexible working arrangements including hybrid on site/WFH options and flexible start/finish times, and genuine career progression opportunities via the academic promotions process.

About You  

• Completion or near completion of a PhD in the field of addiction public health, addiction epidemiology, addiction psychology or related discipline area.

• An emerging profile in research in addiction (alcohol and other drugs), mental health, and the intersection of both.

• Understanding of drug policy and the health and psychological effects of substance use.

• In-depth knowledge of alcohol related policies and the public health impact of alcohol.

• Evidence of contributions towards external research funding applications from national (e.g., ARC) or international agencies.

• Evidence of publications in high quality refereed journals and presenting at conferences.

• Strong quantitative analysis skills with experience in analysing large nationally representative datasets (e.g., National Drug Strategy Household Survey, ABS National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing dataset).

• Experience in designing and executing qualitative studies and conducting qualitative data analysis.

• Experience in evidence synthesis (systematic reviews and meta-analyses).

• Excellent ability and experience in survey design and data collection from a large sample.

• Demonstrated ability in using generative artificial intelligence (e.g., DALL-E and MidJourney) in addiction research and health promotion.

• Proficiency in software such as R, STATA, NVivo, SPSS.

• Demonstrated ability working with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) community and an established network to execute research projects in CALD community. Proficiency in languages other than English is advantageous.

• Involvement in supervising research students.

In addition, the following mandatory requirements apply:

• Mandatory Immunisations: It is a condition of employment for this role that you will be required to provide evidence of immunisation against certain vaccine preventable diseases.

Visa sponsorship may be available for this appointment subject to eligibility.

For more information about this opportunity, please contact Professor Jason Connor, Centre Director, at [email protected] .

For application queries, and to request the position description of this role, please contact [email protected] stating the job reference number (below) in the subject line.

All applicants must upload the following documents in order for your application to be considered:

• Resume

• Cover letter addressing the ‘About You’ section above

Other Information 

At UQ we know that our greatest strengths come from our diverse mix of colleagues, this is reflected in our ongoing commitment to creating an environment focused on equity, diversity and inclusion .  We ensure that we are always attracting, retaining and promoting colleagues who are representative of the diversity in the broader community, whether that be gender identity , LGBTQIA+ , cultural and/or linguistic , Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander peoples , or people with a disability . Accessibility requirements and/or adjustments can be directed to [email protected]  

If you are a current employee (including casual staff and HDR scholars) or hold an unpaid/affiliate appointment, please login to your staff Workday account and visit the internal careers board to apply for this opportunity. Please do NOT apply via the external job board.

Applications close Tuesday 2 April 2024 at 11.00pm AEST (Job Reference Number: R-35927).