Research Associate

We are seeking a Research Associate to join an ambitious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship programme led by Dr Dean D’Souza.

This programme asks a fundamental question: How do exploration and learning self-organise in the first years of life?

We study infants as active learners who shape their own development by sampling information, reducing uncertainty, and updating predictions. To do this, we are building a rich multimodal dataset combining:

• head-mounted cameras
• screen-based and head-mounted eye tracking
• inertial sensors
• fNIRS neuroimaging
• computational modelling

These allow us to trace exploration moment by moment, linking behavioural organisation to environmental complexity.

This post offers substantial intellectual scope. Depending on your expertise and interests, you might:

• characterise developmental changes in exploratory behaviour
• model exploratory dynamics using machine learning, information theory, or dynamical systems approaches
• examine how neural coordination supports curiosity, uncertainty reduction, and prediction

Research Environment

You will be based in the Cardiff University Centre for Human Developmental Science (CUCHDS). Facilities include observation rooms, eye-tracking, electroencephalography, functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), and magnetoencephalography with optically pumped magnetometers (OPM-MEG). The centre has strong links to the Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), one of the largest and most technologically advanced imaging centres in Europe. Both sit within Cardiff University’s School of Psychology, ranked 6th in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

If you are excited by big theoretical questions, rich multimodal data, and the chance to help shape a new, process-based science of development, we would love to hear from you.

For informal enquiries, contact Dr Dean D’Souza (DSouzaD2@cardiff.ac.uk).

This position is full-time (35 hours per week) and fixed term until 14 April 2028.

Salary: £41,064 - £46,049 per annum (Grade 6). Appointments to roles at Cardiff University are usually made at bottom of scale unless in exceptional circumstances.

Cardiff University offers many excellent benefits, including 45 days annual leave (incl. bank holidays), local pension scheme, a cycle to work scheme and other travel initiatives, annual increments within the pay scale, and more. It's an exciting and vibrant place to work with many different challenges and is a proud Living Wage supporter.

Cardiff University is committed to supporting and promoting equality and diversity and to creating an inclusive working environment. We believe this can be achieved through attracting, developing, and retaining a diverse range of staff from many different backgrounds. We therefore welcome applicants from all sections of the community regardless of sex, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, trans identity, relationship status, religion or belief, caring responsibilities, or age. In supporting our employees to achieve a balance between their work and their personal lives, we will also consider proposals for flexible working or job share arrangements.

Cardiff University is a signatory to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which means that in hiring and promotion decisions we will evaluate applicants on the quality of their research, not publication metrics or the identity of the journal in which the research is published. More information is available at: Responsible research assessment - Research - Cardiff University. Applications may be submitted in Welsh, and an application submitted in Welsh will not be treated less favourably than an application submitted in English.