Postdoctoral Researcher – PPIE (ARIADNE)

Location: Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Oxford OX3 7JX

The University of Oxford is a stimulating work environment, which enjoys an international reputation as a world-class centre of excellence. Our research plays a key role in tackling many global challenges, from reducing our carbon emissions to developing vaccines during a pandemic.

The Department of Psychiatry is based on the Warneford Hospital site in Oxford – a friendly, welcoming place of work with an international reputation for excellence. The Department has a substantial research programme, with major funding from Medical Research Council (MRC), Wellcome Trust and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and provides highly rated medical training in psychiatry. The Head of Department is Professor Belinda Lennox.

This is an exciting opportunity for a postdoctoral researcher to become a member of the Design Bioethics Lab (DBL) led by Dr Kathryn Francis and Dr David Lyreskog. You will work on the Wellcome Trust funded project ARIADNE – an interdisciplinary research project developing a screening tool to support clinical evaluation for psychosis risk, powered by generative artificial intelligence. You will lead a project to develop a novel research method for identifying and analysing ethical issues in child and adolescent psychosis risk prediction, assist with project management, and provide guidance to research assistants on the project.

About the Role

The post is funded for 2 years and is based in the Department of Psychiatry at the Warneford Hospital.  

You will design, prepare, manage and lead projects with the NeurOx YPAG to support investigation of ethical dimensions of AI psychosis risk screening tools. You will support the NeurOx YPAG academic lead across other NEUROSEC projects. You will lead on all aspects of a co-produced empirical research study to support the investigation of social and ethical dimensions of AI screening tools for mental health risk; from research design, research ethics submission, data collection, analysis, and outputs

About You

You will have or to be close to completion of PhD/Dphil in psychology, philosophy, bioethics or another relevant discipline e.g.science discipline. You will possess sufficient specialist knowledge in bioethics or philosophy and mental health science, relevant to psychosis risk identification. Experience engaging with individuals with lived experience of psychosis is desirable.

Diversity

Committed to equality and valuing diversity

Our active Psychiatry People and Culture teams  and initiatives including our values and behaviours framework , work to make the Department of Psychiatry as supportive, welcoming and inclusive as possible.

Application Process

You will be required to upload a covering letter/supporting statement, CV and the details of two referees as part of your online application. Please see the University pages on the application process at https://www.jobs.ox.ac.uk/application-process

The closing date for applications is 16 September 2026.