Positions

The Cho Lab would like to hire a post-doctoral associate to work on neuroimaging studies of developmental neuropsychopathology. The Cho Lab uses multimodal imaging to identify vulnerabilities in the neurodevelopmental process that present risks for developing psychiatric illnesses in childhood and adolescence. We are a lab within the Child Study Center, Department of Psychiatry at Yale.

The post-doctoral associate will have the opportunity to work on multimodal neuroimaging studies of developmental psychopathology that aim to understand the effects of motivation on cognition in adolescent depression, in psychosis or schizophrenia, and in typical populations. This includes studies that are collecting data, work on data collected within the lab, and applications to the ABCD dataset and other publicly available developmental datasets.

The post-doc will receive training in areas such as state-of-the-art neuroimaging, quantitative and computational methods, and cognitive neuroscience and developmental psychopathology, all of which are bolstered by the rich intellectual environment of the department.

Expectations of the post-doctoral associate include the processing and analysis of complex neuroimaging and behavioral data with an aim towards publishing manuscripts and generating creative scientific directions. Additional opportunities can include behavioral and neuroimaging task design and genetics-neuroimaging integration.

The well-qualified applicant would have recently completed a PhD or have concrete dates for graduation, would have experience in neuroimaging (pediatric or otherwise) and behavioral data, and would have some experience in quantitative methods with fluency in R or similar data programs. Ideally, they would be self-driven, creative, ethical and collaborative, with the ability to integrate feedback. Ultimately there will be project flexibility based on the interests and motivation of the post-doc, and a lack of formal experience should not preclude the motivation to be trained. Experience with HCP-related pipelines, Linux, pediatric patient populations, pharmacology or visual system neuroscience are a plus.

The starting date is negotiable. The duration of the position will be two years, with the opportunity to extend if agreed upon by the post-doctoral associate and the PI.

Application Process: Please submit a letter of interest, CV, a copy of academic transcript, and at least two names of reference to Nicole Santamauro at nicole.santamauro@yale.edu AND Youngsun Cho at youngsun.cho@yale.edu.

Thank you!

The Cho Lab is looking for a graduating or recently graduated senior with an interest in pursuing graduate level education in computer science, informatics or related field with applications to neuroscience or psychiatry for a postgraduate position in the Department of Psychiatry under the guidance of Zailyn Tamayo, Director of Technology, Cho Lab and Youngsun Cho, Principal Investigator, Cho Lab. The Cho Lab utilizes neuroimaging to better understand neural mechanisms of psychiatric illness related to processes such as cognition, motivation, and development in schizophrenia, depression and typical populations. We use, or collaborate on, a number of data modalities, including neuroimaging, behavior, eye-tracking, natural language processing, and clinical symptoms. This is a salaried, academic position with focused training in large-scale neuroinformatics, including data flow and management, and neuroinformatics software development. Excellent coding skills, critical thinking, and a collaborative perspective are essential to this position.

Training under the supervision of Dr. Youngsun Cho, and the Cho Lab research team, the post-graduate associate will work closely with Zailyn Tamayo, Director of Technology, Cho Lab. The post-graduate associate will be trained in diverse aspects of neuroinformatics as described above. The candidate will apply coding skills to work on fMRI processing pipelines and data orchestration for large- and small-scale projects. They will learn software development skills, working to package created pipelines for general use. Importantly, the candidate will also additionally gain a foundation in data security, including HIPAA, CFR Part 11, and GDPR compliance related to the conduct of human based research, a valuable skill when working with clinical data. . The above training will provide essential training in systems and software engineering.

The postgraduate associate will be mentored by Dr. Cho and will meet on a regular basis. They will have weekly supervision under Zailyn Tamayo, in the development and conducting of data processing workflows applied to psychiatric studies. They will be responsible for collaborating with others within, and external to, the group, including other post-graduates, and training those who intern in the lab in the summers and semesters. They will receive additional mentorship from associate research scientists, post-doctoral associates, faculty, and the lab manager within the Cho Lab.

The trainee's curriculum will include gaining independence in developing neuroinformatics workflows and programming to support neuroscientific analyses, clinical research design, fMRI pipeline development (QuNex), and data orchestration. Programming languages used include Python, Rust, Bash, R, and Matlab. They will work within a team to support neuroimaging preprocessing and analytic infrastructure and contribute to analyses and processing of data. They will become familiar with high performance computing environments and parallel processing, as well as cloud computing infrastructure. They will present at lab meetings on scientific papers and on their work. They will be encouraged to work towards shared authorship on poster presentations and attend conferences to learn about this area of work. They will take short courses or workshops focused on neuroinformatics, basic statistics and computer programming. The Postgraduate Associate position is one year in duration with a possibility for a one-year renewal.

Application Process: Please submit a letter of interest, CV, a copy of academic transcript, and at least two names of reference to: Zailyn Tamayo at zailyn.tamayo@yale.edu AND Nicole Santamauro at nicole.santamauro@yale.edu AND Youngsun Cho at youngsun.cho@yale.edu. Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled.