King's College London

About us:

This is an exciting opportunity to join the Health Psychology Section, part of the School of Mental Health & Psychological Sciences at King’s College London, as well as the Centre for Neuroimaging Science at King’s College London based at Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience (IoPPN). The IoPPN promotes cutting-edge research and translation into practice, addressing a wide range of mental health challenges. You will work closely with an experienced research team, which includes postdoctoral researchers, PhD students, and clinical experts.

About the role:

This is an exciting opportunity to work within a multidisciplinary team that includes world experts in psychology, clinical neuroscience, statistics, patient-clinician communication, and cancer survivorship care. The post-holder will join a team of researchers, clinicians, and patient partners on a 5-year collaborative research programme funded by a Wellcome Mental Health Award, ‘When your body betrays you: interoceptive mechanisms of anxiety after cancer’. The award is supporting a large-scale collaborative research programme between KCL, UCL, Stanford University, and the National Cancer Institute (NIH) through 2025-2030.

The post-holder will sit within two labs including Dr Lauren Heathcote’s team (Principal Investigator) in the Health Psychology Section, Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry Psychology and Neuroscience, as well as Dr Matthew Howard’s team at the Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences at the Institute of Psychiatry Psychology and Neuroscience. The post-holder will have access to lively research environments both in the Health Psychology Section and the Centre for Neuroimaging sciences. Travel between Guy’s Campus and Denmark hill campus will be required for meetings and to fulfil job responsibilities.

The post-holder will be part of the core research team running a Randomised Controlled Trial of interoceptive training as a novel therapy for reducing anxiety in survivors of primary breast cancer (Work Package 1 of the Wellcome MHA). The post-holder will lead on fMRI data collection and analysis of neuroimaging data, which will support the examination of brain-based changes underlying  therapeutic effects. This will involve supporting data collection and optimisation for pilot MRI scans (Q3-Q4 2025) and MRI scans with breast cancer survivors for the larger clinical trial (starting in Q2 2026). fMRI data collection will take place at the Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences as well as at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital.

The position will be full time (100% FTE) and appointed for a fixed duration of 1 year in the first instance, with the possibility of extension up to 3 years for the full duration of the trial. The role will involve working 35 hours per week, and this may include working out of office hours and weekends, as needed, to support data collection on the project. 

This position will require in-person work at least three days per week, but this will be up to five days per week during testing periods.

Please note that this is a PhD level role. However, we will consider candidates who have submitted their thesis and are awaiting award of their PhDs. In these circumstances, the appointment will be made at Grade 5, spine point 30 with the title of Research Assistant. Upon confirmation of the award of the PhD, the job title will become Research Associate and the salary will increase to Grade 6.

Interviews are due to be held in July 2025. The position is available starting from August-October 2025.

About you:

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1. PhD in neuroscience, neuroimaging or related discipline.
2. Experience and knowledge of performing functional MRI experiments
3. Proficiency in the use of statistical packages (e.g. R, SPSS)
4. Experience and knowledge of fMRI analysis methods and use of neuroimaging analysis packages (e.g., SPM, FSL)
5. Excellent written, verbal, interpersonal communication and team-working skills

Desirable criteria

1. Experience working with vulnerable clinical populations in the NHS or another clinical setting
2. Motivated to improve the lives of people living with anxiety, especially after cancer
3. Awareness and practice of Open Science principles (e.g. data sharing, code sharing, public engagement and awareness).
4. Self-motivated, proactive, and takes initiative to problem-solve
5. Understanding of anxiety and interoception science

Downloading a copy of our Job Description

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click “Apply Now”. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

Further information:

We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers will review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.

Interviews are due to be held in July 2025. The position is available starting from August-October 2025.