The CAD Lab is committed to recruiting and retaining underrepresented students at all levels, from undergraduate to post-doctoral, and providing strong support, training, and mentorship.
OPEN POSITIONS:
We are hiring at the POST-DOCTORAL level and I will be accepting graduate students for Fall 2025 – see below for detail.
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS:
We do not have any current openings for undergraduate students in the lab. Please check back.
POSRTBACCALAUEREATE STUDENTS:
We do not have any current openings for postdocs students in the lab. Please check back.
GRADUATE STUDENTS:
I will be interviewing students for admission in the Fall of 2025. I receive a large number of emails from potential applicants, and I cannot respond to each one personally. Nor can I meet (e.g., over Zoom) with prospective students before applications have been submitted. The material below will provide information about my lab to help inform your decision to apply. Although you might have been encouraged to do so, sending me an email to inform me that you will be applying is neither necessary nor encouraged, and it does not have any bearing on the selection process.
My current graduate students are members of the Clinical Science program. However, I also now accept applications from the new Interdisciplinary Neuroscience program. You should ensure that your interests align with the lab’s current research (see below) before applying, as admission to either of these programs, and to my lab, is highly competitive. It is important to note that I only accept students who are planning to pursue a research career, and all applicants should be interested in gaining extensive training in neuroimaging. In addition, I typically accept students who have engaged in 1-2 years of post-baccalaureate research experience, although this is not a requirement.
RESEARCH FIT:
The CAD lab seeks to identify and understand the manner in which brain connections become disturbed in pathological anxiety and mood during adolescence, with the goal of identifying at-risk individuals and intervening before pathology crystalizes. Our work consists of three overlapping areas:
Characterizing the neuromaturational trajectories of normative brain networks
Identifying pathology-related disturbances in such development (i.e., pathoconnectomics)
Developing novel tools for understanding emergent features of brain networks (e.g., graph theory)
We are currently funded by the National Institute of Mental Health to study how pubertal processes influence the development of brain networks over a two year span in adolescents who are at risk for anxiety. This study examines changes in how the brain regulates emotional reactions to socially-relevant stimuli, whether hormones like testosterone and DHEA influence these changes, and whether these processes differ by biological sex (i.e., the category an individual was assigned at birth).
With this work in mind, I take students who are interested in adolescent development and anxiety and/or emotion regulation, with a focus on the role of brain networks. Please make sure to specify your interests in your application.
POST-DOCTORAL:
We are hiring a postdoctoral researcher position. The researcher will contribute to an ongoing NIMH-funded R01 grant examining longitudinal change in brain networks that contribute to anxiety development during early adolescence, with a focus on pubertal hormones.
The ideal candidate will have a strong background in programming and MRI analysis, along with an interest in adolescent development, emotion/motivation, and/or anxiety, although all applications are encouraged. Clinical training or experience with network analysis methods are not required, but would be considered an asset. Applications from any area of Psychology/Neuroscience are encouraged, although previous experience with human MRI is necessary.
The primary duties of the postdoctoral researcher will be to analyze MRI data and write manuscripts for publication. In addition, the researcher will have the opportunity to learn and apply cutting-edge network-analysis methods (e.g., graph theory) to understand the network basis for anxiety. The position would last for a two-year period with potential for renewal.
If you are interested in being considered for the position, please send a current CV, a brief statement of interest that outlines your qualifications for the position, reprints of selected papers, and the names of three professional references to Dr. Jeffrey Spielberg at jmsp@udel.edu.
