Junior Specialist- Hastings Lab

Position Overview

Dr. Paul Hastings at the Center for Mind and Brain seeks to fill a full‑time Junior Specialist position starting July 1, 2026. This is a full‑time (100% appointment, 40 hours/week) position for one year with the possibility of a second year.

Salary range: $55,000 at Step 1.

• Open date: May 27, 2026
• Next review date: Thursday, Jun 11, 2026 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)
• Final date: Thursday, Dec 31, 2026 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time)

The junior specialist will work under the supervision of Dr. Paul Hastings on the study titled "Effects of early‑life nutritional supplementation on the brains, bodies, and behaviors of Ghanaian youths in middle adolescence". Core responsibilities include coordinating data transfer between data collection sites in Ghana and UC Davis; processing autonomic physiological data; training colleagues, staff and students at UC Davis and University of Ghana in physiological data processing;

assisting with implementation of data collection activities involving parents and adolescents in Ghana; collecting and reviewing journal articles in developmental psychophysiology, nutrition and global human development; managing an article database in Zotero; engaging in discussions on research and the interpretation of research results; contributing to reports of results as publications in scholarly journals (e.g., Child Development; American Journal of Clinical Nutrition) and/or presentations at conferences (e.g., Society for Research in Child Development;

American Society for Nutrition), with potential for authorship credits and/or lead author/presenter roles; and providing university service in the form of undergraduate student supervision. Responsibilities may include learning to conduct statistical analyses in R, SPSS, SAS and/or MPlus; refining and debugging code in R scripts; pre‑processing and analyses of MRI and DTI data; travel to Ghana for working directly with team members and research participants;

assisting with preparation of grant proposals to support additional research; and working on other studies and datasets for conference presentation or manuscript preparation, contingent on interests and research pacing.

Target population:
Ghanaian youths in middle adolescence.

• Develop and/or coordinate procedures for international collaborative processing of data; facilitate activities of colleagues in remote locations.
• Participate in weekly discussions of relevant literature, and conduct literature reviews relevant to the work being conducted.
• Attend live or remote conferences to present the results of the research.
• Conduct independent and/or collaborative data analysis.
• Contribute to the writing and preparation of manuscripts for publication.
• Train students and staff in Davis, Bangladesh and/or New York on physiological and/or neuroimaging data collection procedures with participants (i.e., children, adolescents, pregnant women).
• Train team members live and remotely on processing and preparation of physiological data.
• Process physiological data to provide feedback to the data collection team in Bangladesh about data quality and improve procedure administration.

• Monitor lab supplies and order supplies as needed.
• Prepare and maintain IRB materials and ensure compliance with protocols.
• Prepare figures and text for presentation at research conferences and for manuscripts to be submitted for publication.

• Train and mentor undergraduate students on data coding and analysis protocols.

• A Bachelor’s degree in psychology or neuroscience.
• Prior experience working with cardiac physiological data.
• Availability to work flexible job hours.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and strong writing skills.
• Excellent organizational and time‑management skills.
• Proficiency in typical software used in research (Microsoft Excel & Word, Google Calendar, Google Voicemail).
• Experience with statistical analysis (e.g., using R).

• Previous research experience with Mindware hardware and ACQ, HRV, IMP and EDA software.
• Hands‑on data…