Post-doctoral research and teaching position (1.0 FTE)

This is a fixed-term, three-year post-doctoral position that combines research (50%) and teaching (50%).

The research project focuses on the question of how perception benefits from subtle changes to the senses. For example, your pupils dilate slightly when you get aroused or when you exert mental or physical effort. But why does this happen? Is arousal-related pupil dilation in some way beneficial to visual perception? And if so, how exactly? These questions are fundamental to our understanding of (visual) perception. You can read more about the theoretical underpinnings of this project in this review article (https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-vision-030320-062352 ), written by the primary investigator of the project (Sebastiaan Mathôt).

This position is part of a larger project, based on an NWO VIDI grant, for which two PhD students and one post-doctoral researcher (this position) will be recruited. In this larger project, we will make use of a combination of experimental techniques, including pupillometry, fMRI, EEG, tympanometry, and psychophysics. You will be responsible for developing and carrying out a subset of these experiments, analyzing the resulting data, and writing up the results as scientific manuscripts.

An important part of this project will also be to actively engage with ‘open science’. This means that you will make all experimental scripts and data publicly available (to the extent possible given privacy restrictions), and that you will engage in good scientific practices such as preregistration and transparent reporting. In this spirit, you will be encouraged to also produce non-traditional forms of scientific output, such as data sets and software.

With your teaching, you will provide an important contribution to the Applied Cognitive Neuroscience master track (https://www.rug.nl/masters/applied-cognitive-neuroscience/ ). This is a new and growing master track that focuses on translating fundamental research from cognitive neuroscience to practical applications. Teaching will be in English, and Dutch proficiency is not required. Teaching duties will primarily consist of small-group teaching and supervision of student projects and internships.