Research Assistant I

at  Harvard University

JOB SUMMARY

An experienced, independent, and highly-organized individual is sought for a full-time Research Assistant position in the Stress and Development Laboratory at the Harvard University Psychology Department, run by Katie McLaughlin, PhD. Our research examines the impact of environmental experience on children’s development. Our research focuses on identifying developmental mechanisms linking adverse environmental experiences to the onset of psychopathology.
Under the supervision of Dr. McLaughlin, the individual in this position will be involved in an active research lab with several large grants and participate in many aspects of the research process, including recruitment of children and adolescents into research, preparation of IRB applications, data collection from children and caregivers, data management, programming behavioral tasks, and maintenance of a database for participant recruitment and tracking. These duties will primarily focus on either an intensive repeated-measures fMRI study examining dynamic changes in emotion, behavior, and brain function following exposure to stress in adolescents. Data collection for this study involves acquisition of psychophysiology and MRI data in addition to assessments of mental health and exposure to stress and adversity.
Required to be able to work in person on Harvard’s campus

POSITION DESCRIPTION

• Recruitment and screening of participants
• Maintain databases for participant recruitment and tracking
• Data collection with children, adolescents, and caregivers in multi-modal studies involving psychophysiology, neuroimaging, clinical interviews, ecological momentary assessment, passive mobile sensing (e.g. Fitbits, screen time, call/text data) and mental health assessments
• Prepare IRB applications
• Clean and organize data for analysis
• Program behavioral tasks
• General administrative duties to maintain the workings of the laboratory (e.g., managing lab website, coordinating lab meetings, etc.)

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

College background or equivalent experience in psychology, neuroscience, or related field

ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS AND SKILLS

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant academic area
• At least one year of full-time work experience in a research position in psychology or neuroscience
• Experience working with children and adolescents (e.g. data collection or clinical experience) is preferred
• Experience with task presentation software or programming experience (e.g., Psychopy, Eprime, R, Matlab, Python, Javascript) is preferred but not required
• Experience in collecting and/or analyzing neuroimaging data (i.e., MRI, fMRI, DTI) and comfort working in a command-line environment (e.g., Linux) is preferred but not required

Please refer the Job description for details