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Job Summary
The Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience (SDN) is seeking up to three full-time "pre-doc" Research Assistants. The successful candidates will have an interest in pursuing a Ph.D. program and subsequent research career in human social and decision neuroscience. The Research Assistants will work in a fast-paced, supportive research environment and learn to work independently and in collaboration. They will be introduced to active research life, enabled to do and publish high-quality science and prepared for admission to, and success at, high-quality Ph.D. programs. The Caltech SDN faculty is small but our collective research interests cover much ground. There is a wide range of affiliated faculty across different Chen Centers (see
We are interested in cognitive neuroscience, computational neuroscience, systems neuroscience, non-human animal studies, and how behaviors studied in social science (political judgment, consumer choice, strategic thinking, emotion, etc.) are implemented in the brain (see for details). At the end of one year, Research Assistants will give a formal research presentation open to the entire Caltech neuroscience community. The Research Assistants will conduct research in a Caltech lab group, supervised by an experienced senior faculty member (PI). Based upon the information provided in the statements of research, a matching algorithm will be used to match selected individuals with faculty (supervision by two or more faculty members is possible).
The deadline to submit an application is March 1, 2025. Although flexible, the anticipated start date would be June 1 - September 1, 2025.
Essential Job Duties
- Design and construct experiments.
- Collect and analyze data.
- Conduct presentations of the analyzed data.
- Attend regular lab science meetings and fully participate in lab activities.
Basic Qualifications - Bachelor's degree in a STEM field from a four-year accredited university by the start of the assignment.
- Prior research experience.
- Familiarity with R, Python, SPM or FSL (fMRI analysis), Overleaf.
- Have strong university academic records.
Required Documents - Resume.
- Two names of individuals who may be contacted for references.
- Statements of research interest. The research interest statements should indicate what type of research you would like to do at Caltech (750-word limit).
- Rank up to three (3) Caltech social and decision neuroscience faculty whose groups you would be most interested in joining (tied ranks are allowed; add 100 words about your motivation for ranking each person).
- A description of how this work experience will help you reach your academic and long-term career goals (500-word limit).