RESEA001556 Research Scholar

About the Role

The Stress, Trauma, and Resilience Program (STaR Lab) at the San Francisco VA Health Care System (SFVAHCS), affiliated with the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and supported by NCIRE, is recruiting for a Postdoctoral Research Scholar. This position focuses on PTSD, trauma, sleep, and fear learning. The role has an expected duration of two years and aims to train fellows to become leading investigators in these areas. Fellows will dedicate at least 75% of their time to research and educational activities, with up to 25% for clinical training or professional development.

Key Responsibilities

The postdoctoral scholar will:

• Design and execute research studies focused on PTSD, trauma, sleep, and fear learning.
• Lead data analysis efforts, integrating clinical, psychophysiological, and sleep-related measures.
• Write manuscripts for peer-reviewed publications and develop presentations for national and international conferences.
• Contribute to and increasingly lead grant development, including pilot grants, career development awards, and multi-site proposals.
• For clinically trained fellows, engage in supervised clinical assessment and structured psychotherapy.

Potential projects may focus on:

• Pharmacologically augmented PTSD treatments.
• Remote and in-lab fear conditioning and extinction paradigms using psychophysiological measures (EDA, EMG, HR/HRV, facial coding, remote PPG).
• Insomnia and sleep disturbance in trauma-exposed populations.
• Traumatic brain injury (TBI), PTSD, and sleep as interacting risk factors.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• Doctoral degree (e.g., PhD, PsyD, MD, or equivalent) in clinical psychology, neuroscience, psychiatry, public health, or a closely related field.
• Demonstrated research productivity, including peer-reviewed publications or strong evidence of publishable work.
• Strong interest in PTSD and trauma-related disorders, sleep/insomnia, TBI, fear learning/fear extinction, psychophysiology, and/or mechanistically informed interventions.
• Ability to work both independently and collaboratively within a multidisciplinary research team.

Highly desirable but not strictly required for outstanding candidates:

• Prior experience with clinical research, clinical trials, psychophysiology, sleep research, and/or trauma-exposed populations.
• For clinically trained applicants, prior experience with clinical assessment and/or evidence-based psychotherapy for PTSD or related conditions.
• Strong quantitative, analytic, and writing skills.
• Experience with tools such as R, Python, or MATLAB.

Working Conditions

• Biomedical research laboratory environment.
• May involve minor environmental annoyances.
• Prolonged periods of standing, sitting, and computer use.

VA Onboarding Requirements

• All candidates must complete SFVA onboarding, which includes a federal background check, occupational health clearance, required vaccines/immunizations, and drug testing.
• Failure to pass required drug testing may disqualify candidates from employment.