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 an experienced and highly motivated 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 engage in research to further your expertise and growing research profile in the field of addiction to achieve national recognition. You will have scope to develop your research proficiency by focusing on specific projects related to substance-related research, as well as an opportunity to manage service and engagement roles and activities.

In this role, the successful candidate will co-lead a research program on social media and youth addiction, with a strong focus on youth nicotine use. 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 and associated tasks, and also under the supervision of the Centre’s Director on projects funded by the Department of Health and Aged Care.

Key responsibilities include (but are not limited to):

• Develop an independent and/or team research program to achieve national recognition and impact in the research area.

• Produce quality research outputs consistent with discipline norms by publishing or exhibiting in national research journals, other appropriate refereed publications and conference publications, with a lead role in some outputs.

• Participate in or contribute as chief investigator role (often in conjunction with more experienced researchers) in applications for competitive research funding to support projects and activities, which includes actively seeking, obtaining and managing research funding.

• Demonstrate a track record of effective postgraduate student supervision.

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

• Effectively and efficiently manage internal and external service roles and administrative processes as required, including participation in decision-making and service on relevant committees.

• Actively pursue and 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 31 December 2027 at Academic level B.

The full-time equivalent base salary will be in the range $108,201 - $128,201 plus super of up to 17%. The total FTE package will be in the range $126,595 - $149,996 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.

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

• A developing reputation and track record of publications in high impact refereed journals and presenting at conferences.

• Evidence of successfully seeking, obtaining and managing external research funding.

• A growing record of supervision of postgraduate research students.

• Ability to translate complex information clearly to lay audiences such as young people (e.g., developing harm reduction resources to present to young people at local schools) and the general public (e.g., via submissions to various parliamentary committees and the Department of Health).

• Advanced statistics and data analysis skills, including quantitative data analysis of large Australian nationally representative datasets (e.g., National Drug Strategy Household Survey, the Population Assessment of Tobacco Health, Monitoring the Future and the National Youth Tobacco Survey).

• Excellent understanding of global drug or tobacco policies.

• Experience with R, STATA and MPlus, and understanding of the causal analytic framework is necessary.

• Excellent qualitative analysis of social media content.

• Mastery in social media content creation using cutting edge artificial intelligence technologies (e.g., MidJourney and Dall-e).

In addition, the following mandatory requirements apply:

• Work Rights: You must have unrestricted work rights in Australia for the duration of this appointment to apply. Visa sponsorship is not available for this appointment. 

• 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.

Questions? 

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.

Want to Apply? 

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 Monday 18 March 2024 at 11.00pm AEST (Job Reference Number: R-35923).

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