Research Specialist in Nutritional Neuroscience

Do you want to contribute to better health for all?

Our research group offers a unique opportunity to work closely with leading researchers at the intersection of psychology and neuroscience, aiming to jointly advance our understanding of how the human brain utilizes sensory input to regulate food intake. We offer an engaging, international research environment where you can contribute to high-quality research at the forefront of the field globally.

Description of the subject area

The position involves scientific work integrating olfactory and gustatory perception, reward processing, and clinical research to address three interconnected goals: first, to enhance our understanding of the fundamental behavioral mechanisms regulating the perceptual and affective aspects of food stimulus processing, and their impact on the initiation of reward-seeking behaviors. Second, you will work to determine the underlying neural mechanisms driving these phenomena. Finally, you will investigate whether dysfunctions in these mechanisms contribute to disordered eating behavior and dysregulation of body weight. Identifying the link between neurobiological mechanisms and behavior—and relating these to potential dysfunctions—will provide a crucial foundation for developing targeted intervention strategies to enable more effective regulation of food intake in the future.

Your mission

As a research specialist, you will play a key role in the daily operations of the research group, working in close collaboration with the principal investigator. Your main duties will include:

• Daily operations and coordination of the group’s research projects: study planning, quality assurance of analyses, and methodological support for brain imaging studies (including the selection of experimental designs, analysis strategies, and interpretation).
  
• Support with research-related administrative tasks, such as ethics applications and amendments, pre-registration, reporting to funding bodies, data management documentation, and the coordination of collaborations.
  
• Teaching and supervision at the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels, including support with study design, statistical analysis, and manuscript writing.
  
• The opportunity to develop an independent research profile and apply for independent funding, both within and outside the scope of the group’s activities.

Eligibility requirements

For employment as Research Specialist at Karolinska Institutet, the eligibility requirements stated in the Guidelines for non-teaching positions at Karolinska Institutet are applied in relation to the established profile of employment.

To be eligible for employment as a Research Specialist, in addition to holding a Degree of Doctor, PhD, or having a foreign degree deemed equivalent to a Swedish doctoral degree, the applicant must have demonstrated research expertise as well as have documented postdoctoral research experience.

In addition, the following eligibility requirements apply to this position:

• Doctoral degree in cognitive or affective neuroscience, psychology, nutrition, or another field we deem relevant. 
• Documented research experience in cognitive neuroscience, focusing on the chemical senses (olfaction and gustation).
• Documented experience of independently designing, conducting, and publishing brain imaging and behavioral studies.
• Very good experience in handling and analyzing brain imaging data for univariate, multivariate, and connectivity analyses.
• Experience supervising thesis students and/or research interns.
• Experience in teaching (e.g., lectures) at undergraduate and advanced levels.
• Very good scientific writing skills, documented by first-author articles in prominent field-specific or interdisciplinary scientific journals.
• Excellent proficiency in spoken and written English.

The position involves close collaboration within the group and with national and international collaborators, and requires good collaboration and communication skills. You also need to be structured, thorough, and able to work independently. Great emphasis will also be placed on personal suitability.

Assessment criteria

It is particularly meritorious that the applicant has shown

• basic knowledge of Swedish 
• general programming skills in Python, R, and Matlab
• experience using machine learning-based methods such as Support Vector Machines and Representational Similarity Analysis

It is meritorious that the applicant has shown

• experience in writing research grant applications. 
• documented experience with presentation of research results., eg. as speaker at conferences
• ROI analyses using cross-validation methods
• visualization of complex multivariate results, e.g. in MATLAB, MRICroGL, ggplot2

After an overall assessment of the expertise and merits of the applicants in relation to the subject area, Karolinska Institutet will determine which of them has the best potential to contribute to a positive development of the activities at KI.

What do we offer?

A creative and inspiring environment with wide-ranging expertise and interests. Karolinska Institutet is one of the world's leading medical universities. Here, we conduct successful medical research and hold the largest range of medical education in Sweden. At KI, you get to meet researchers working with a wide range of specialisms and methods, giving you ample opportunity to exchange knowledge and experience with the various scientific fields within medicine and health. It is the crossover collaborations, which have pushed KI to where it is today, at the forefront of global research. Several of the people you meet in healthcare are educated at KI. A close relationship with the health care providers is important for creating groundbreaking top quality education and research. Karolinska Institutet is also a state university, which entitles you to several benefits through our collective agreement.

Location: Solna

Read more about the research group
Read more about the Department of Clinical Neuroscience 

Application

We prefer that Your application is written in English, but You can also apply in Swedish. An application must contain the following documents:  PhD certificate, resumé, qualifications and description of planned research, presented in accordance with Karolinska Institutet's qualifications portfolio.

The application must be submitted through the Varbi recruitment system.

KI applies individual and differentiated salary setting in accordance with our collective agreements RALS and RALS-T. Permanent position is initiated by a six months trial period.

Want to make a difference? Join us and contribute to better health for all!