Research Assistant (Child Developmental Psychology)

The Early Mental Potential & Wellbeing Research Centre (EMPOWER) is a University Research Institute whose mission is to maximise every child’s mental and emotional capital by uplifting neurodevelopmental trajectories during early sensitive periods through interdisciplinary discovery science and translational technologies. The Centre has 3 major activities and thrusts:   
  
1) Core Discovery Research, Empowering Science: Basic neuroscience research and advanced computational models to understand individual neurocognitive potential, developmental trajectories, and risk and resilience factors;  
2) Translation to Clinic & Pedagogy, Empowering Practitioners: Developing precision assessment and intervention tools to optimise parent-child social and mental health within clinical, education and community settings;  

3) Translation to Real-World Technologies, Empowering Families: Creating scalable solutions and real-world technologies for parents to enhance their child’s mental and cognitive wellbeing at home

For more details, please view https://www.ntu.edu.sg/empower

We are looking for an experienced Research Assistant to work closely with a team of researchers, led by PI – Professor Victoria Leong, and to drive and fulfill research deliverables and milestones within a tight timeline. The postholder is expected to render research support to the Centre’s Director, Professor Victoria Leong and collaborators, on basic and translational projects with a focus on early childhood development.

• Perform participant recruitment, data collection and basic data analysis

• Design and validate novel cognitive tasks

• Assist with data coding of video and audio data for behavioural analysis of parent-infant social interaction and synchrony

• Assist with graduate and undergraduate research student projects

• Provide other administrative and research support to the PI where necessary

Key Responsibilities:

• Assist in the setup and execution of experiments

• Ensure that all experimental protocols are followed

• Develop relationships with clinicians and other professionals to help advise on achievement of project goals.

• Plan, prepare, and run focus group activities with parents, clinicians and other interested parties

• Ensure that all participant data is managed appropriately and following university protocols.

• Collect, record, and maintain accurate data from experiments

• Assist in data analysis and the preparation of reports and presentations for dissemination

• Monitor project timelines and milestones, and prepare reports for regular review.

Job Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, Neuroscience, Biomedical Engineering, Medical Sciences or related Technical and Computational fields;

• Experience with human psychological data collection, working with children (particularly infants) and families or running focus.  

• Good verbal and written communication skills. This includes the ability to communicate sensitively with parents who may be worried about their child’s development

• Good organisational and administrative skills

• Able to work independently and to adapt flexibly to changes in timelines or project goals

• Experience analysing qualitative and/or quantitative data would be an advantage.

Desired

• Experience with EEG and/or eye-tracking data collection;

• Experience working in mental health settings;

• Skills in programming and/or computational analysis of data;

• Interest in parent-child social interaction and the development of early cognition

We regret to inform that only shortlisted candidates will be notified.

Hiring Institution: NTU