Post-doctoral research and teaching position (1.0 FTE)

Since its founding in 1614, the University of Groningen has enjoyed an international reputation as a dynamic and innovative center of higher education, offering high-quality teaching and research. We encourage the 36,000 students and researchers to develop their own individual talents. Among the best research universities in Europe, we join forces with prestigious partner universities and networks around the world, the University of Groningen is truly an international place of knowledge.

The Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences is a centre of knowledge focusing on individuals and society. The faculty studies issues relating to human behaviour, and the relationships between people and society as a whole. This includes the study of how people function under normal circumstances, but also of the problems encountered by individuals or groups, and how these can be resolved or prevented. The Department of Psychology is part of the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, and offers bachelor’s and master’s programmes in both Dutch and English to over 3000 students.

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.

We are looking for candidates who have:

• a PhD in the area of psychology, neuroscience, or artificial intelligence
• a high degree of English proficiency
• experience with supervising students and small-group teaching
• experience with conducting research involving human participants
• experience with coding, ideally in Python.

We offer you in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities:

• a salary, depending on qualifications and work experience, with a minimum of € 3,408 to a maximum of € 3,807 (salary scale 10.4 – 10.7) gross per month for a full-time position
• excluding 8% holiday allowance and an 8.3% year-end bonus, participation in a pension scheme for employees and excellent secondary benefits. We offer 232 holiday hours per calendar year for a full-time employment
• an appointment on a temporary basis for 3 years.

For more detailed information about working conditions and working for the University of Groningen, please check: https://www.rug.nl/about-us/work-with-us/

The appointee will ideally commence on 1 January, 2022

For information you can contact:

Dr Sebastiaan Mathôt,   [email protected]

(please do not use the email addresses above for applications)