Research Specialist | PEACHY

at  UPMC

This position has been created for the PEACHY study, a5-year study recently funded by NIMH, led by Drs. Lauren Bylsma and Judith Morgan in the Department of Psychiatry. The goal of this project is to better understand how parent coaching of positive affect in preschoolers influences child neural responses to reward in a sample of 4-6 year-old young children. The Research Specialist will be assisting with run lab visits, data entry, data cleaning and processing, and general data management tasks. This position is ideal for candidates interested in gaining a few years of clinical research experience prior to applying to graduate school in Psychology, Neuroscience, or related fields.

• Independently execute job functions for research protocol(s)
• Conducting lab study visits where neural signals (EEG) are collected from young children, including application of EEG sensors, explaining tasks to the children and parents, setting up the data acquisition and tasks on the computers, managing the data, cleaning and processing the EEG data, providing payments to participants.
• Assist with supervision of students who will assist with the EEG data collection and processing.
• Collaborate with senior research personnel regarding recruitment, data collection, outcomes of interviews, reports according to the needs of the study.
• Bachelor’s degree required, preferably in Psychology, Neuroscience, Sociology or related research field.
• Minimum of one year of work experience in a research project and/or related clinical setting is required.
• Prior experience working with young children and families is strongly preferred.
• Strong attention to detail and organizational skills are essential.
• Familiarity with computers and common software packages required.
• Working knowledge of research methodology strongly preferred.