Junior Specialist- Saron Lab

50% Junior Specialist Position for six months
Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis

A 50%-time junior specialist position is available in the Saron lab starting in February 2025. The successful candidate will participate in a research program examining the effects of meditation-based training programs on emotional, physiological, and attentional responses to human suffering.
Applicants must be able to work flexible hours, including some evenings and weekends. Appointment may be extended depending on available funding.

Responsibilities will include:

Research (70%)
* Responsibilities will include laboratory-based behavioral, physiological, and gaze-tracking data collection, overseeing participant scheduling and communication, organization, and maintenance of psychological questionnaire batteries, signal processing of eye-tracking and autonomic physiological data, and data cleaning and analysis of behavioral and self-report data.
* Additional responsibilities include characterization of source material underlying the Thematic Affective Picture Set (TAPS) and background research related to situating the TAPS within the corpus of available emotional image sets.
* In-person testing of undergraduate research participants, using electrophysiological and eye tracking techniques.
* Recruiting, consenting, and debriefing research participants.
* Data Processing of self-report, physiological, eye-tracking, and behavioral data
* Develop new protocols for laboratory experiments involving acquisition of behavioral, self-report, physiological and eye tracking measures, and implementation of research materials using Qualtrics.
* Creating a database of TAPS image sources and basic parameters.

Professional Competence (10%)
* Participate in weekly or bi-weekly discussions of relevant literature and conduct literature reviews relevant to the work being conducted.
* Conduct independent data analysis.
* Engage in discussions of research results and the interpretation or writing up of data for publication in scholarly journals. Where appropriate, the individual would earn authorship on these publications.
* Contribute to the writing and preparation of manuscripts for publication.

University and Public Service (20%)
* Mentor undergraduate students on participant recruitment, data collection, and analysis protocols. This will provide a university service by actively facilitating the participation of undergraduate students in research activities.

* Bachelor's degree in the contemplative, psychological or neurosciences
* Minimum of 1-year part-time experience working or volunteering in a research lab in psychology, engaging in clinically relevant work, and/or attendance in intensive contemplative training environments.
* Experience with the collection of psychophysiological data is also a requirement.
* Strong interpersonal skills and have the ability to work independently and as part of a team.

Prior experience with the dissemination of scientific research. Prior experience with and programming data analysis using R-Studio. Experience with organizing and/or conducting meditation training environments and classes.

• 2-3 letters of reference required

As a condition of employment, the finalist will be required to disclose if they are subject to any final administrative or judicial decisions within the last seven years determining that they committed any misconduct, are currently being investigated for misconduct, left a position during an investigation for alleged misconduct, or have filed an appeal with a previous employer.

• "Misconduct" means any violation of the policies or laws governing conduct at the applicant's previous place of employment, including, but not limited to, violations of policies or laws prohibiting sexual harassment, sexual assault, or other forms of harassment, discrimination, dishonesty, or unethical conduct, as defined by the employer.
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