Research Assistant/Associate in Data Science and Computational Neuroscience

Salary:

Research Assistant: £33,002 to £34,610 per annum

Research Associate: £35,608 to £43,482 per annum

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 29 March 2026

The Role

As part of the project “Assessing ChrOnobiological Rhythms iN health and epilepsy (ACORN)”, we are excited to recruit a motivated individual with research experience in a relevant subject area to work with us on this exciting project at the CNNP Lab.

The aim of ACORN is to understand the role of biological rhythms (chronobiology) in health and disease, and develop time-adaptive therapies. This project is funded by UKRI and is a collaborative project that spans multiple continents.

Your main role will be to develop advanced algorithms for multivariate, multi-resolution time series analysis of wearable and neurophysiological data spanning weeks to months. You will build robust data pipelines and analytics workflows for large-scale chronobiological datasets. You will engage also with a wide network of stakeholders, and explore new avenues for medical applications. For ongoing work and publications on this project, please see our website: www.cnnp-lab.com.

This is a 12-months position initially (extendable to three years) and is expected to be held full time and in person. You should hold a PhD in a relevant area, or nearing completion of a PhD.

You will join the CNNP Lab, which is well supported with recent funding of over £4M. The lab is based in the School of Computing at the Newcastle Helix site in Newcastle city centre, with state-of-the-art facilities. Extensive career support and mentoring is available to all team members, and a generous budget for travel and computing equipment will be provided.

As a UKRI-FLF funded role, the successful applicant may be eligible for the Endorsed Funder Route of the Global Talent Visa. We can provide an interest free loan scheme to support applicants who need to apply for a visa.

Please contact Prof Yujiang Wang yujiang.wang@newcastle.ac.uk for specific questions.

For more information about the School of Computing, please click here

We follow the Researcher Development Concordat. We enable all staff to fulfil their research potential regardless of career stage. This commitment secures our thriving research culture and vibrant research environment. Our offer to each individual and their researcher development involves: mentoring, annual research planning discussions, pooled research funding to support career development and research activities, peer review support for the development of research and innovation funding applications.

Key Accountabilities

• To contribute to data curation, workflows and analyses of new and existing data in a responsible manner
• To prepare and deliver presentations on research outputs/activities to diverse audiences which may include: research sponsors, academic and non-academic audiences
• To contribute to publication of high quality outputs, including papers for submission to peer reviewed journals and papers for presentation at conferences and workshops under the direction of the Principal Investigator
• To assist with the development of research objectives and proposals
• To conduct individual and collaborative research projects under the direction of the Principal Investigator
• To work with the Principal Investigator and other colleagues in the research group, as appropriate, to identify areas for research, develop new research methods and extend the research portfolio
• To deal with problems that may affect the achievement of research objectives and deadlines by discussing with the Principal Investigator and offering creative or innovative solutions
• To liaise with research colleagues and make internal and external contacts to develop knowledge and understanding to form relationships for future research collaboration
• To plan and manage own research activity, research resources in collaboration with others and contribute to the planning of research projects
• To deliver training in research techniques/approaches to peers, visitors and students as appropriate
• To be involved in student supervision, as appropriate, and assist with the assessment of the knowledge of students
• To contribute to fostering a collegial and respectful working environment which is inclusive and welcoming and where everyone is treated fairly with dignity and respect
• To engage in wider citizenship to support the department and wider discipline

The Person

Knowledge, Skills and Experience 

• You will have experience with data management and workflows 
• You will have substantial technical experience in time series analysis, ideally 
  either in neurophysiology data or wearable sensor data 
• Extensive experience in multivariate time series analytics, or multi-resolution, 
  or multi-timescale analytics 
• You will have experience of advanced statistical analysis

Desirable

•  Experience in collecting EEG or wearable data from human participants
•  Experience in running experiments in free-living condition under long timescale (weeks-months) 
•  Experience in working with clinical populations in terms of recruitment and study delivery 
• Extensive experience in cloud infrastructure, orchestration tools, and databases 
•  Demonstrable ability to present research papers at national/international conferences and communicate complex information to specialists and within the wider academic community
• Strong publication record in peer-reviewed journals, commensurate with stage of career 

Attributes and Behaviour

•  Demonstrable ability to work cooperatively as part of a team, including participating in research meetings
• Ability to work independently on own initiative and to strict deadlines
• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to work with participants, patients, and members of the public 
• Present as a representative of the lab at national and international scientific events 
• Demonstrate strong mathematical and computational abilities
• Demonstrate excellent programming ability in languages such as Python
• Excellent communication skills across multiple disciplines 
• Excellent academic writing skills 
• Excellent time and project management skills 
• Demonstrable commitment to the values of equality and diversity in all aspects of your work

Qualifications

• PhD (or nearing completion) in any related areas, preferable in an interdisciplinary topic (e.g. Computational Neuroscience, or Biomedical Engineering)

Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.  As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution.

We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society.  We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent.  We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.

At Newcastle University we hold a Gold Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality.  We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC.  We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role as part of the offer and interview scheme.

In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe. 

Requisition ID: 29064