Research Assistant in Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phones

The SCAMP team led by Professor Mireille Toledano are seeking a Research Assistant to play a hands-on role in an ambitious and exciting new 5-year programme of work addressing multifactorial pathways to adolescent mental health, following a UKRI MRC grant funding extension worth £2.4m. Launched in 2014, SCAMP (Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phones) is a major prospective cohort study, following secondary school pupils across...

Job listing information

• Reference MED02224
• Date posted 29 January 2021
• Closing date 1 March 2021

Key information about the role

• Location St Mary's Campus (map)
• Position type Full time, fixed term
• Salary £36,045 – £39,183 plus benefits
• Department School of Public Health
• Category Researcher / Non Clinical Researcher

Job description

Job summary

The SCAMP team led by Professor Mireille Toledano are seeking a Research Assistant to play a hands-on role in an ambitious and exciting new 5-year programme of work addressing multifactorial pathways to adolescent mental health, following a UKRI MRC grant funding extension worth £2.4m.

Launched in 2014, SCAMP (Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phones) is a major prospective cohort study, following secondary school pupils across London from Year 7 (ages 11-12) through to early adulthood to investigate whether use of mobile phones and other wireless technologies affect young people’s neurocognitive, behavioural and mental health outcomes. For more information on the SCAMP study please visit www.scampstudy.org

This post provides an excellent opportunity to work on a large prospective cohort study, and develop your skills and knowledge, in a world-class research environment.  We are looking for a self-motivated researcher with a ‘can-do’ attitude, to play a hands-on role in the next phase of SCAMP follow-up data collection. You will be involved in all aspects of the research programme, including liaising with schools / teachers / participants, data collection sessions in schools and online, developing questionnaires, development of a new app, biological sample collections, an exercise/sleep monitoring sub-study, qualitative focus group research, epidemiological analysis of data and assisting with scientific write-ups.

Duties and responsibilities

Your key responsibilities will involve assisting a programme of research in child / adolescent epidemiology, with particular focus on mental health, cognitive function, and environmental / lifestyle / external influences (e.g. RF-EMF, physical activity, COVID-19) in collaboration with PI, Co-PI, the research team and external collaborators.

You will also be responsible for undertaking epidemiological / statistical analysis of health and exposure data, using appropriate statistical software, as directed by senior researchers.

Essential requirements

You should hold an MSc or equivalent in Epidemiology / Public Health or related quantitative field, as well as a strong background in Epidemiology / Public Health. You should have experience of analysing epidemiological or psychological/cognitive data and good knowledge of epidemiological concepts and techniques. Experience of conducting fieldwork / data collection, ideally with children/young people is essential for this role.

Further information

The position is available on a fixed term, full time basis for 12 months based at St Mary’s Campus (Paddington), although currently mainly remote working from home, due to Covid-19.

For any specific queries regarding the post please contact Dr Steven Shen [chen.shen@imperial.ac.uk]

As this post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, a satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, at the appropriate level, will be required for the successful candidate.

For technical issues when applying online please email recruitment@imperial.ac.uk

The College is a proud signatory to the San-Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), which means that in hiring and promotion decisions, we evaluate applicants on the quality of their work, not the journal impact factor where it is published. For more information, see https://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research-evaluation/

The College believes that the use of animals in research is vital to improve human and animal health and welfare. Animals may only be used in research programmes where their use is shown to be necessary for developing new treatments and making medical advances. Imperial is committed to ensuring that, in cases where this research is deemed essential, all animals in the College’s care are treated with full respect, and that all staff involved with this work show due consideration at every level. http://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research-integrity/animal-research/