Rising Scholars Postdoctoral Fellowship Program seeks to recruit scholars who have the potential to assume a tenure-track faculty position and who would benefit from a mentored professional development opportunity.
The goal of this program is to provide a mentored professional development opportunity to train the next generation of scholars for future tenure-track positions at UVA or elsewhere. Postdoctoral Fellows selected under this program will be appointed for two years (subject to annual review) and will carry out research, teaching and professional development activities directed toward securing a tenure-track position.
Psychology Department participates in both components of the program:
1) As a STEM field, Psychology invites under-represented researchers to join our department, and
2) Psychology Department also encourages recent psychology PhDs focusing on race justice and equity research to apply.
Prospective applicants are encouraged to contact any faculty member close to their interest, or the department chair, Alev Erisir ([email protected]).
OPPORTUNITIES FOR PROSPECTIVE RISING SCHOLAR FELLOWS IN PSYCHOLOGY
The Community Psychology program has several faculty conducting research on racial justice and equity issues who will provide mentorship and supervision to the postdoctoral scholar. In particular, Drs. Hurd, Leath, and Avery are conducting research on topics such as experiences of risk and resilience among underrepresented college students; the holistic development of Black girls and women in the context of families, schools, and communities; race, gender, sexuality, and mainstream media; bystander interventions to disrupt online racial discrimination; Black women's intersectional identities and their psychological and sexual health; and natural mentoring relationships within Black families. Moreover, Community area faculty are directing and participating in the new Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellowship in Race & Inequality in Higher Education, which brings together faculty and doctoral students across psychology, sociology, higher education, and other disciplines to advance interdisciplinary scholarship aimed at reducing racial inequality in higher education. Faculty in the Community area are well-versed in diverse methods including quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research. Rising Scholars Postdoctoral Fellows would have the time and space to advance their own research agenda while also having access to data and training opportunities from any Community area faculty. They also would have plentiful opportunities to collaborate with faculty, other post-doctoral fellows, and doctoral students. The Community area is very diverse across a number of social identities (e.g., race, ethnicity, sexual orientation), and is a very welcoming space for scholars who belong to identity groups that are underrepresented in the academy and who conduct research on issues of racial justice and equity.
The Systems and Behavioral Neuroscience program in Psychology department offers opportunities to a Rising Scholar Fellow interested in broadly studying the development of sensory circuits and molecular, epigenetic and neural mechanisms of behavior in a wide range of vertebrate model organisms. The Fellow will conduct independent work in collaboration with faculty, whose expertise spans molecular, cellular, systems and computational neuroscience, and will have access to state-of-the art facilities for microscopy, imaging, in vivo and ex vivo electrophysiology, molecular biology and biochemistry, next-generation sequencing, behavioral assays, fully managed vivarium, as well as grant and administrative support. Career development and research mentorship will be provided for a successful transition to a tenure-track position. As the goal of the initiative is to promote racial equity, we are seeking candidates that identify as a group historically under-supported in STEM fields.
The Social Psychology program faculty are committed to mentor a Rising Scholar Fellow and provide support for their career development. The scholar will have the opportunity to collaborate with faculty with research expertise in implicit cognition, social neuroscience, decision making and judgments, stereotype and prejudice, social justice, race, diversity, and inequality, social networks, close relationships, and emotion. The Fellow will have full access to the well-equipped social area laboratory space and resources (e.g., Quatrics and Zoom accounts), as well as to the Psychology Department’s participant pool, and other access to other specialized equipment (e.g., EEG, fMRI).
The Developmental Psychologyprogram offers two opportunities. First, Tobias Grossmann, an expert in developmental, social and cognitive neuroscience, will train a Fellow in using multiple neuroimaging methods with infants. As a critical part of the training, the Fellow will receive extensive instruction how to design, use, and apply functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), electroencephalography (EEG) and eye tracking with infants. While engaged in funded projects in Grossmann lab, the appointment will facilitate independent data collection and grants for postdoctoral scholar’s future research program. Second, Angeline Lillard, an expert on the science behind the Montessori preschool education, will offer research collaboration opportunities in supervised childcare centers in collaboration with the Equity Center.
The Clinical Psychologyfaculty use a broad range of research methods, including ecological momentary assessment, neuroimaging, behavioral genetics, and in-person and digital health intervention approaches, to conduct research that supports healthy development, relationships, and emotion regulation. As one example of the opportunities for collaboration and mentorship, Bethany Teachman conducts a range of projects that use mobile sensing to identify periods of emotion dysregulation, especially tied to anxiety and mood disorders, and delivers targeted digital mental health interventions to increase access to care. Extensions of this work to better reach underserved populations (e.g., language and cultural tailoring to reach anxious individuals who identify as Hispanic) are ongoing. The scholar will have opportunities to work as part of an interdisciplinary team with clinical scientists, engineers and computer scientists.
