Social Science/Humanities Research Associate II

University of Texas at Austin

1d•Onsite

About The Position

The Mood Disorders Laboratory, part of the Institute for Mental Health Research, is hiring a Social Science/Humanities Research Associate II to coordinate an NIMH-funded research study. The mission of the Mood Disorders Laboratory (MDL) is to advance our understanding of mood disorders, such as Major Depressive Disorder, through scientific research. The current project builds on our prior work in the area of cognitive bias modification for depression. This project is a large scale clinical trial designed to examine the efficacy of traditional, gamified, and placebo attention bias modification for adults with depression. As a key member of the research team, the research associate will be primarily responsible for coordinating the day-to-day activities of the research project. This includes communicating with the internal review board, recruitment of participants into the research study, conducting psychophysiological research (eye-tracking in particular), onboarding subjects into the online intervention arms, conducting diagnostic clinical interviews, and assisting with scientific publications and conference submissions, among other duties.

Requirements

BA in psychology or other related area with at least two years of research experience.
Relevant education and experience may be substituted as appropriate.

Nice To Haves

MS in Psychology or a related field and two or more years of full-time research experience.
Experience conducting psychological research involving structured or diagnostic clinical interviews.
Demonstrated experience with research data management and quantitative analysis using statistical or data science tools (e.g., REDCap, R/RStudio).
Training or coursework in quantitative methods, statistics, or data science for the social sciences.
Experience using research project management or documentation platforms (e.g., Notion).

Responsibilities

Coordinate day-to-day study operations, including participant recruitment and screening, onboarding participants into online intervention arms, scheduling and conducting study visits, reserving study space and resources, administering diagnostic clinical interviews, conducting psychophysiological assessments such as eye-tracking, and troubleshooting participant-facing technical issues related to study participation.
Manage study data, technical workflows, and research infrastructure, including overseeing data collection procedures, maintaining study documentation and protocols, monitoring data quality, preparing datasets for analysis, and providing technical support related to study dashboards, APIs, scripts, and other data systems.
Coordinate research communication, compliance, and team processes, including facilitating study meetings related to recruitment/advertising, interrater reliability, and clinical supervision, and maintaining regulatory documentation and submissions for IRB and NIH requirements.
Supervise and train undergraduate research assistants, including oversight of participant tracking, data entry, and other study support activities, as well as mentoring students in research methods, data management, and foundational computational skills.
Contribute to scholarly and grant-related products, including assistance with scientific manuscripts, conference presentations, and grant materials.
Other duties as assigned.