"Open Rank"

Posted: 23-Jan-25

Location: Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Categories: Academic/Faculty, Medical - Research

Internal Number: 295260

Employment Type: Permanent Faculty

Vacancy ID: FAC0005427

Salary Range: Dependent on Experience and Qualifications

Position Summary/Description:

The UNC Institute for Trauma Recovery (ITR) is seeking an open rank, tenure track Psychologist clinical/translational research faculty member to help advance our institute mission as part of the Department of Psychiatry at UNC. The Department of Psychiatry provides an outstanding environment for groundbreaking research, clinical care, career development and interface with colleagues and other units that perform basic, translational, and clinical research. The ITR conducts emergency care-based research (https://www.med.unc.edu/itr/), in which individuals are identified/enrolled at or around the time of emergency care into prospective observational or intervention studies.

The work of the ITR has two overarching goals: 1) To increase understanding of how adverse posttraumatic neuropsychiatric sequelae (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, pain and other somatic symptoms) develop after traumatic stress exposure (e.g., motor vehicle collision, military deployment, sexual assault); and 2) To develop interventions that prevent these outcomes. Our primary strategy to achieve these goals is to recruit and retain outstanding, talented, self-motivated staff, post-doctoral fellows, and faculty who are passionate about improving the lives of trauma survivors. We have several large standing emergency care-based research networks/registries that we use to perform this work. There are a diversity of activities going on within the ITR to serve our mission, and substantial opportunity to tailor activities based on individual interests (e.g., conduct of behavioral and/or medication clinical trials, longitudinal observational studies, analysis of longitudinal data, etc.).

The Psychologist hired will collaborate with the Institute Director, Dr. Sam McLean, and ITR staff to advance these goals and help lead the institute as associate director. ITR staff include 21 FTEs, consisting of 6 PhD staff, as well as more than 16 undergraduate and graduate students. Work of the institute currently includes more than $27 million in active grants, including large-scale observational studies and more than 8 active clinical trials. Start-up funding available.

The successful applicant will have a demonstrated track record of outstanding accomplishment commensurate with their level of experience/seniority, and great potential to improve the lives of trauma survivors through the work of the institute. The faculty member hired will be expected to carry out clinical research projects independently within the ITR, obtain external funding, design and execute research studies, perform data analysis, write manuscripts, and publish results. The candidate may also be expected to cover some of their effort via clinical care or other means initially. Depending on applicant rank and interests, some or all of this research time may be covered by collaboration on ongoing ITR grants. Start-up funding is also available to support initial activities.