Postdoctoral Fellow, Language Biomarker Lab - Emory College of Arts and Sciences

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Description

KEY RESPONISBILTIES:

• Helps design and conduct research within a specified field while receiving advanced training from a designated Principal Investigator to enhance professional skills and research independence needed for pursuit of a career.
• The specific area of research in which the trainee is mentored is determined by the department and laboratory of the Postdoc.
• Designs and evaluates experiments. Develops new ideas that promote current research. Prepares and publishes scientific manuscripts under the direction of the Principal Investigator. May be responsible for operation of specific equipment.
• May teach techniques to others, train, and supervise research staff. Positions are temporary appointments as a research trainee. The initial appointment is for one year, renewal expected if progress is satisfactory and funds are available. Appointments cannot exceed five years. 

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS: 

• A doctoral degree or equivalent (Ph.D., M.D., ScD., D.V.M., DDS etc) in an appropriate field. Excellent scientific writing ability and strong oral communication skills.
• The ability to work effectively and collegially with colleagues. Additional qualifications as specified by the Principal Investigator.

ADDITIONAL JOB DETAILS: 

• This postdoctoral position supports the design and execution of research investigating language indicators of psychosis across phylogenetically diverse languages.
• This work is part of the Accelerating Medicines Partnership® in Schizophrenia (AMP® SCZ)—the largest schizophrenia research initiative funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (fNIH), and numerous industry partners.
• The AMP SCZ project involves collaboration across 42 international sites and includes a clinical trial conducted at 15 U.S. locations.
• At the Emory University site—Language Biomarker Lab—research focuses on aligning spoken language with facial expressions and vocal characteristics to enable multimodal analysis.
• This alignment supports the integration of clinical interview data (including open-ended interviews and audio diaries) with other biomarkers such as MRI, EEG, and genetic data, with the aim of enhancing early detection of psychosis and evaluating the efficacy of two candidate medications.
• The postdoctoral researcher will develop and maintain computational pipelines for detecting atypical patterns of communication in clinical populations, with a particular focus on individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis.
• Features of interest span multiple levels of analysis, including acoustic characteristics, semantic structure, discourse organization, topic maintenance, and facial movement dynamics.
• The lab has access to a dedicated GPU cluster, including A100, H100, and H200 GPUs, to support large-scale model development, training, and fine-tuning of large language models.
• The postdoctoral researcher will work closely with the Principal Investigator to analyze data, prepare scientific manuscripts, and publish findings.
• Depending on project needs, the postdoc may also help manage specialized equipment and maintain the lab’s audio/video data-processing pipelines.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS: 

• A doctoral degree in a relevant field
• Ph.D. in Psychology, Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering, Biomedical Informatics, or Linguistics Experience with natural language processing (NLP) and generative language models
• Excellent scientific writing and oral communication skills
• Ability to work effectively with colleagues both at Emory and collaborating institutions

APPOINTMENT DETAILS:

• This is a one-year position with the possibility of renewal for up to three years.

NOTE: Position tasks are generally required to be performed in-person at an Emory University location.  Remote work from home day options may be granted at department discretion. Emory reserves the right to change remote work status with notice to employee.

Additional Details

Emory is an equal opportunity employer, and qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by state or federal law. Emory University does not discriminate in admissions, educational programs, or employment, including recruitment, hiring, promotions, transfers, disci