PhD position in Multisensory Development

UniBE is ambitious. With us, you deliver top performance and test your skills against the best.

Your responsibilities

• Develop VR experiments, including stimulus presentation and interfaces to stimulation and recording systems; adapt instructions and calibrate task difficulty across ages while preserving the core task structure and sensory-conflict manipulations.
• Implement and verify synchronisation across devices, assess timing accuracy and data quality, and document technical procedures.
• Recruit and test children and adolescents in collaboration with the study team; collect multimodal data and carry out standardised cognitive assessments.
• Develop reproducible workflows for processing and analysing EEG, eye-tracking and behavioural data alongside recorded VR and vestibular-stimulation events and parameters; examine age-related differences and relationships with cognitive performance.
• Prepare manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals, present findings at scientific conferences, and contribute to shared methods and open science practices.

Essential requirements

• Master's degree in engineering or a closely related quantitative discipline, with strong technical preparation, completed by the starting date.
• Practical proficiency in MATLAB and Python, demonstrated through developing and debugging experimental or data-acquisition software.
• Hands-on research experience with at least two of the following: EEG, VR experiment development, eye tracking or controlled vestibular stimulation. This must include experimental implementation or data acquisition in at least one method.
• Experience linking experimental software with acquisition or stimulation devices and verifying timing using event markers, triggers or timestamps.
• Working knowledge of R for data handling and statistical analysis, with an understanding of experimental design and inferential statistics.
• Practical experience conducting experiments with human participants, and motivation to work with children and adolescents.
• German sufficient for independent recruitment, study instructions and communication with children and families; strong written and spoken scientific English.

Desirable experience

• Research or other relevant experience working with children and adolescents; standardised cognitive or developmental assessments.
• Knowledge of cognitive and sensorimotor development across childhood and adolescence, relevant to age-appropriate task calibration to preserve the core experimental structure and sensory-conflict manipulations.
• EEG preprocessing and handling movement-related artefacts.
• VR development in Unity/C# or comparable environments.
• Bayesian modelling, machine learning or deep learning for behavioural or neural data.

Applicants meeting the essential requirements are encouraged to apply.

We offer

• Close supervision with regular scientific and methodological feedback, and scope to shape your doctoral research within PREDICT.
• Collaboration with PREDICT's international university partners and participation in methodological exchange.
• An interdisciplinary ARTORG research community connecting biomedical engineering, neuroscience and clinical research.
• Opportunities to develop expertise in multimodal experimentation, neurophysiological analysis and reproducible research, supported by doctoral training and career development.
• Opportunities for scientific publications and conference presentations; salary in accordance with applicable SNSF and University of Bern doctoral employment regulations.

Application and Contact

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled. Early applications are encouraged. Please submit a single PDF by email to [email protected], with the subject line “PREDICT WP3 PhD application”, including:

• Your CV.
• A motivation and skills statement of up to two pages, explaining your interest in the position and briefly addressing each essential requirement. Use one or two relevant project examples to demonstrate your technical and experimental experience, clearly describing your own contribution.
• Degree certificates and academic transcripts, or your current transcript and expected completion date.
• Contact details of two referees.

Links to existing code or project documentation are welcome where available. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to an interview including a brief poster presentation and questions about their previous experimental work and their own contribution. Details will be provided with the interview invitation. No poster is required with the initial application. Appointment is subject to formal doctoral admission at the University of Bern.