Temporary Vision Research Assistant

Salary: £33,951 to £35,608 per annum, pro rata

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:  19 October 2026

The Role 

Would you like to do research in basic vision science with real-world applications?   Are you highly skilled in colour vision testing and keen to develop your expertise in behavioural experiment design?   If yes, we want someone like you for the role of temporary part-time research assistant in the Hurlbert Colour Vision Lab at Newcastle University.

Colour vision deficiency (CVD) affects approximately 8% of males and 0.5% of females in the UK. People with CVD are often excluded from professions and occupations, for example, authorised firearms officer roles in the UK police, where colour cues are considered critical to job performance.  Yet empirical evidence is lacking for the relationship between CVD and operational performance in many such roles.

In this role, you will carry out specialist colour vision testing of individuals with normal and anomalous colour vision to characterise their low-level chromatic discrimination abilities and diagnose  the specific type of colour vision deficiency where it exists.  You will also help to design and run additional experiments assessing  the use of colour in specific visual tasks.   You will be responsible for recruiting participants, carrying out the specialist assessments, collating the data, and preparing summary charts of the results.

You will work as a research assistant within a research team, taking part in regular project meetings that may involve external collaborators, presenting and discussing your progress, and contributing to written reports of the research.

In this temporary part-time role, you will be based at our Newcastle upon Tyne campus that has excellent transport links and state of the art facilities. You will also have working space and resources in the Biosciences Institute in the Faculty of Medical Sciences. The working hours will generally be 10 hours/week, with testing of participants generally happening between 8am and 6pm on weekdays.   The total number of hours for this role will ideally be between 120 and 150, with the role starting no later than 3 August  2026 and finishing before 31st December 2026, but there is flexibility around the hours and timings.

How to apply: Please send us a CV together with a covering letter outlining why you are interested in the role and giving examples to illustrate how you meet the essential criteria in the job description. Below are some of the key criteria to focus on:

• Understanding and facility with use of colour science concepts, terminology, and metrics
• Previous direct experience of and proven skills in colour vision testing
• Previous direct experience of recruiting participants for colour vision experiments
• High level of practical problem-solving capability
• Excellent oral presentation skills

Please contact Professor Anya Hurlbert (anya.hurlbert@ncl.ac.uk) or Ilgin Cebioglu (I.cebioglu2@ncl.ac.uk) for informal enquiries.

Find out more about the Faculty of Medical Sciences here: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/medical-sciences/

Find out more about our Research Institutes here:

https://www.ncl.ac.uk/medical-sciences/research/institutes/

Key Accountabilities 

• Collect, analyse and interpret research data and draw conclusions on the outcomes
• Co-ordinate own work with that of others, use problem solving to affect the achievement of research objectives and contribute to the planning of the project(s)
• Present information on research progress and outcomes to a Principal Investigator or groups overseeing the research project
• Write up results from own research activity and provide input into the research project’s dissemination, in whatever form (report, papers, chapters, books)
• Use research resources (including, where required, laboratories, workshops and specialist equipment) as appropriate
• Recruit participants, assess colour vision abilities using specialist tasks
• Contribute to discussions on experiment design

The Person 

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Understanding and facility with use of colour science concepts, terminology, and metrics
• Previous direct experience of and proven skills in colour vision testing
• Previous direct experience of recruiting participants for colour vision experiments
• High level of practical problem-solving capability
• Excellent oral presentation skills
• Excellent IT skills in all major office applications
• Attention to detail and ability to work at high levels of accuracy
• Ability to present complex information effectively to a range of audiences
• Proven ability to analyse data and write-up results
• Experience of working collaboratively with colleagues
• The ability to use personal initiative and creativity to solve research problems

Desirable

• Experience with colour naming experiments
• Fluency in both English and a second language

Attributes and Behaviour

• Ability to work collaboratively within an interdisciplinary team
• Keenness to discuss and debate alternative solutions to complex problems
• Strong work ethic
• Ability to work to deadlines, while staying clam
• Aware of ethical issues involved in behavioural data collection and assembly

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in relevant discipline (awarded or near-completed)

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: 29650