Research Assistant for the Dutch Research Consortium 'Language in Interaction'

Employment

0.6 - 1.0 FTE

Gross monthly salary

€ 2,471 - € 3,336

Organizational unit

Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging

Application deadline

18 June 2023

Apply now

Are you an enthusiastic research assistant who is interested in learning new skills and gaining experience with participant recruitment and non-invasive electrophysiological (EEG and MEG) data collection? Would you describe yourself as meticulous and organised? If so, then we are looking for you!
As a research assistant your main duties will be participant recruitment and data collection for a magnetoencephalography (MEG) study involving participants who will be engaged in a language task. You will receive all necessary training and will for the most part be accompanied by a trained MEG researcher, but prior experience with MEG (or EEG) data collection will be a definite advantage. Dependent on your background and interest, there is also the potential to learn and carry out some portions of the analysis of the collected data. Secondary tasks may include data management and archiving for this project (and a few related projects), assistance with data collection for related electroencephalography (EEG) and MEG studies, and data entry and processing in Excel.

Profile

• You should hold a Master's degree in a relevant discipline, such as cognitive neuroscience or psychology.
• You have experience recruiting and testing human participants in cognitive/psycholinguistics experiments.
• You are relatively flexible (within a typical working day) when it comes to working hours (these may vary from week to week depending on lab and participant availability).
• You have a good command of English (proficiency in Dutch would be an advantage).
• You have excellent social skills and a proactive attitude.
• You have experience of programming in Matlab and/or R.

We are

Language in Interaction research consortium
The Netherlands has an outstanding track record in the language sciences. The research consortium 'Language in Interaction' (link is external) , sponsored by a large grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO), brings together many of the excellent research groups in the Netherlands with a research programme on the foundations of language. In addition to excellence in the domain of language and related relevant fields of cognition, our consortium provides state-of-the-art research facilities and a research team with ample experience in the complex research methods that will be used to address the scientific questions at the highest level of methodological sophistication. These include methods from genetics, neuroimaging, computational modelling, and patient-related research. This consortium realises both quality and critical mass for studying human language at a scale not easily found anywhere else. 
We have identified five Big Questions (BQ) that are central to our understanding of the human language faculty. These questions are interrelated at multiple levels. Teams of researchers will collaborate to collectively address these key questions of our field.
Our five Big Questions are:
BQ1: The nature of the mental lexicon: How to bridge neurobiology and psycholinguistic theory by computational modelling?
BQ2 (link is external) : What are the characteristics and consequences of internal brain organisation for language?
BQ3: Creating a shared cognitive space:  How is language grounded in and shaped by communicative settings of interacting people?
BQ4: Variability in language processing and in language learning: Why does the ability to learn language change with age? How can we characterise and map individual language skills in relation to the population distribution?
BQ5: How are other cognitive systems shaped by the presence of a language system in humans? 
DCCN
You will be appointed at the Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging (DCCN) in Nijmegen and will become a member of our Big Question 2 team (link is external) . The mission of DCCN is to conduct cutting-edge research in cognitive neuroscience. Much of the rapid progress in this field is being driven by the development of complex neuroimaging techniques for the in-vivo scanning of activity in the human brain - an area in which the Centre plays a leading role. The research is conducted in an international setting at all participating institutions. English is the lingua franca.

Radboud University
We want to get the best out of science, others and ourselves. Why? Because this is what the world around us desperately needs. Leading research and education make an indispensable contribution to a healthy, free world with equal opportunities for all. This is what unites the more than 24,000 students and 5,600 employees at Radboud University. And this requires even more talent, collaboration and lifelong learning. You have a part to play!
We offer

• It concerns an employment for 0.6 - 1.0 FTE.
• The gross monthly salary amounts to a minimum of €2,471 and a maximum of €3,336 based on a 38-hour working week, depending on previous education and number of years of relevant work experience (salary scale 7 ).
• You will receive 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus.
• It concerns a temporary employment for 0.5 years.
• You will be able to use our Dual Career and Family Care Services . Our Dual Career and Family Care Officer can assist you with family-related support, help your partner or spouse prepare for the local labour market, provide customized support in their search for employment and help your family settle in Nijmegen.
• Working for us means getting extra days off. In case of full-time employment, you can choose between 30 or 41 days of annual leave instead of the legally allotted 20.

Additional employment conditions
Work and science require good employment practices. This is reflected in Radboud University's primary and secondary employment conditions . You can make arrangements for the best possible work-life balance with flexible working hours, various leave arrangements and working from home. You are also able to compose part of your employment conditions yourself, for example, exchange income for extra leave days and receive a reimbursement for your sports subscription. And of course, we offer a good pension plan. You are given plenty of room and responsibility to develop your talents and realise your ambitions. Therefore, we provide various training and development schemes.

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Would you like more information?
For questions about the position, please contact Ashley Lewis, Postdoc at ashley.lewis@donders.ru.nl .
Practical information and applying
You can apply until 16 June 2023, exclusively using the button below. Kindly address your application to Ashley Lewis. Please fill in the application form and attach the following documents:

• A cover letter (maximally 1 page), including the names and contact information (e-mail address) of at least two persons who can provide references.
• Your CV, including a section on your previous experience with participant recruitment and testing, and one highlighting any previous programming experience.

The first round of interviews will take place on Monday 26 June. The second round of interviews will take place on Monday 3 July. You would preferably begin employment as soon as possible.
We can imagine you're curious about our application procedure . It offers a rough outline of what you can expect during the application process, how we handle your personal data and how we deal with internal and external candidates.
Apply now Application deadline 18 June 2023

We would like to recruit our new colleague ourselves. Acquisition in response to this vacancy will not be appreciated.

Dr Lewis, A.G. (Ashley)
Postdoc
ashley.lewis@donders.ru.nl
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Last modified: 08 June 2023
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