PhD candidate in EEG and ultra-high field MRI within developmental neuropsychiatry

The Capital Region of Copenhagen is looking for a PhD candidate in EEG and ultra-high field MRI within developmental neuropsychiatry.
Are you interested in unravelling how alterations in developing brain function and structure contribute to developmental psychiatric disorders? Do you thrive working in inspiring multidisciplinary teams, bridging between brain mapping, computational modelling, and clinical neuroscience? Then you are the person we are looking for!

The Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance (DRCMR) at Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre (Denmark) is seeking a 3-year PhD candidate in EEG and ultra-high field MRI within the field of developmental psychiatry. Together with our strong clinical collaborators at the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit, we are currently running the prospective Danish High Risk and Resilience Study (VIA) (www.drcmr.dk/via). The VIA study longitudinally follows the largest register-based cohort of children (n=522) in the world born to parents with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or none of these disorders. Children were assessed at the ages of 7, 11, and 15 years with neuroimaging included at age 11 and onwards. We are currently running the second longitudinal neuroimaging follow-up at age 19 years.

You will mainly be working on the longitudinal VIA data, with a focus on EEG data and 7T spectroscopy data. The project involves collection of both EEG and MRI data in the VIA cohort as well as analyses of EEG and MRI data, with a strong focus on the EEG part.

You will be a member of the “Developmental Psychiatry” group (www.drcmr.dk/developmental-psychiatry) where the VIA project is embedded (www.drcmr.dk/via). You will thereby have ample possibilities to interact with researchers who are working on related multimodal neuroimaging studies.

The PhD candidate position involves a tight collaboration with Prof. Merete Nordentoft (Region Hovedstaden - Psychiatry and University of Copenhagen) as the main PI of the VIA cohort study and the VIA neuroimaging group, including neuroimagers at DRCMR and the Center of Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN), Aarhus, Denmark.

Qualifications:

• Master's degree in neuroscience, computational science and engineering, psychology or equivalent.
• Experience with EEG and/or MRI data acquisition and/or data analyses.
• Experience in Matlab or Python programming is highly desired.
• Experience with signal processing and data analyses is desired.
• You have a good team spirit, innovative and constructive thinking and are excited about research.
• You have an interest and/or experience in mechanisms/pathophysiology related to child- and adolescent mental health and developmental neuropsychiatry.
• You enjoy being part of a multidisciplinary and international research team and integrating technological innovations into your neuroscience research.
• You possess good English communication skills.

The project will be carried out at the DRCMR, which is a leading research centre for biomedical MRI in Europe (www.drcmr.dk) focusing on the brain. Approx. 75 researchers from more than 20 countries and a diverse range of disciplines are currently pursuing basic and clinically applied MR research and its validation with a focus on structural, functional, and metabolic MRI of the human brain and its disorders. The DRCMR is embedded in the Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, a large diagnostic imaging department including all biomedical imaging modalities at the Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre.

The DRCMR has a state-of-the-art research infrastructure for preclinical and human medical imaging, which includes six whole-body MR scanners (one 7T, four 3T and one 1.5T scanners), a preclinical 7T scanner, a High-Performance Computer cluster and several state-of-the-art laboratories for electrophysiology and non-invasive brain stimulation.

The postdoc project will be supervised by Senior Researcher Melissa Larsen and Professor Hartwig Siebner.

Starting date: is expected to be April 1st, 2025 or shortly thereafter.

Salary and Terms of Employment:

You will be employed as a PhD candidate for a period of 3 years. Salary, pension and terms of employment are in accordance with the agreement between the Danish Regions (Danske Regioner) and the relevant professional organization. The salary depends on background education and seniority. Note that candidates coming from abroad may be eligible for tax reductions. The position is open for candidates of all nationalities.

We see diversity as strength and encourage all persons regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, disabilities, or religion to apply.

Applications should include a motivation letter, references, list of publications and CV.

Applications must be submitted on-line through the RegionH job portal.

Application deadline: January 20th, 2025, at 23:59 (CET)

Applications received after the deadline will not be considered.

Job interviews are expected to be held shortly after the application deadline.

Department:

Lokation: Hvidovre Hospital