King's College London

THIS VACANCY IS OPEN TO INTERNAL APPLICANTS ONLY

About you

​​​​The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) is a leading Centre for mental health and neuroscience research in Europe. Research from the IoPPN has made, and continues to make, an impact on how we understand, prevent and treat mental illness, neurological conditions and other conditions that affect the brain. 

​The Department of Forensic and Neurodevelopmental Sciences (FANS) is one of Europe’s largest research groups, bringing together leading experts in brain development and neurodiversity. We undertake basic sciences, translation, and applied clinical research to improve outcomes.  

About the role

We are looking for a highly motivated and talented Post-Doctoral Research Associate to work with a research team led by Dr Rory Sheehan and Dr Vaheshta Sethna. The successful candidate will have a key role in delivering a novel new analysis using the eLIXIR Born in South London database. The work is funded by the Baily Thomas Charitable Trust and will investigate the role of prenatal and early life exposures on the health and development of children born to women with intellectual disability. 

The eLIXIR dataset is a unique dataset of routinely collected maternity data and can be linked with other health datasets in south London such as the records of the local mental health Trust using the Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS).

The successful candidate will liaise regularly with our multi-disciplinary collaborators across departments and research institutions and will have excellent negotiation skills and written and verbal communication abilities. They will help with project co-ordination. The successful candidate will assist the wider team in the dissemination of study findings, including writing research manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals and presentations at conferences.  

There will also be an opportunity to contribute to the work of our Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) group to ensure the work reflects the needs, priorities, and experiences of people with intellectual disability and their families and carers.

This is a part time post (60% FTE / 21 hours per week), and you will be offered an a fixed term contract until 31/12/2026.

Research staff at King’s are entitled to at least 10 days per year (pro-rata) for professional development. This entitlement, from the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, applies to Postdocs, Research Assistants, Research and Teaching Technicians, Teaching Fellows and AEP equivalent up to and including grade 7. Visit the Centre for Research Staff Development for more information.

About you

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

Essential criteria

1. A science or healthcare-related bachelor’s or master’s degree (minimum 2:1).
2.  PhD qualified in relevant subject area*(e.g., epidemiology, population health, quantitative social science, statistics, psychology, developmental psychology, perinatal mental health, child health). 
3. High degree of competence in standard medical statistics and in using statistical software packages (e.g. R, Stata or Python). 
4. Experience working with large-scale routinely collected healthcare data. 
5.  An understanding of confidentiality and protocols for ethics and data management and protection. 
6. Ability to write scientific reports to a publishable standard. 
7. Capable of working effectively as part of a multi-disciplinary research team. 
8. An enthusiasm for healthcare data research and willingness to adapt and learn new research methods. 

Desirable criteria

1. Knowledge of advanced statistical methods for analysis of longitudinal data. 
2. Demonstrated interest in working with people with neurodevelopmental conditions and their carers/supporters or interest in working in perinatal health. 
3. Scientific publications (journal publications or conference abstracts) or other forms of academic output. 
4. Experience of Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) in research.  

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 page. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

* Please note that this is a PhD level role but candidates who have submitted their thesis and are awaiting award of their PhDs will be considered. 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.

Further information

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's.

As part of this commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion and through this appointment process, it is our aim to develop candidate pools that include applicants from all backgrounds and communities.

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 on week commencing 15th December 2025.