Postdoctoral Associate

Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care ( UBHC), established in 1971, offers a full continuum of evidence based behavioral health and addiction services for children, adolescents, adults, and seniors throughout New Jersey. UBHC's 1,060 experienced behavioral health professionals and support staff are dedicated to treatment, prevention, and education. UBHC, one of the largest providers of behavioral health care in the country, has a budget of $260 million and has 15 sites throughout New Jersey. Services are readily accessible and include: inpatient, outpatient, partial hospitalization, screening, crisis stabilization, family/caregiver support, community outreach and case management, supportive housing, supported employment, prevention and consultation, employee assistance programs, and a licensed therapeutic school from preschool through high school.

Specialty services include the New Jersey suicide prevention helpline and peer help lines for police, veterans, active military, teachers, mothers of special needs children and child protective service workers. In FY2016, UBHC treated 16,199 consumers, had 24,502 admissions, and touched the lives of 19,441 individual callers through peer support. In addition, UBHC is the primary mental health training resource for the New Jersey departments of Human Services, Children and Families, and Corrections, delivering 16,000 trainings each year.

Rutgers The State University is seeking a Postdoctoral Associate in the Addiction & Decision Neuroscience Laboratory ( ADN) of Rutgers University Behavioral Healthcare.

We are seeking a Postdoctoral Associate to join the Addiction & Decision Neuroscience Lab (https://www.konovalab.com/) led by the Principal Investigator and located at the Rutgers Center for Advanced Human Brain Imaging Research ( CAHBIR). The ADN Lab conducts decision neuroscience research with clinical applications to addiction and other mental health concerns. Our work draws on methods from psychology, experimental economics, human neuroscience, and computational psychiatry. Ongoing projects span clinical studies of addiction recovery to experimental research on how people construct value, experience subjective states like craving and affect, and make dietary choices. We use a range of techniques, including cognitive tasks administered in the lab and on smartphones, functional MRI (including densely sampled, precision imaging), and clinical assessment and phenotyping. By combining these tools with theoretical models, we aim to understand how the brain supports thoughts, emotions, and decisions-and how disruptions or biases in these processes impact mental health.

CAHBIR (https://sites.rutgers.edu/cahbir/) is a state-of-the-art brain imaging facility featuring a research-dedicated 3T Prisma MRI scanner, an EEG/ TMS suite, high-speed access to high-performance computing, and shared lab space with other neuroimaging groups. The Postdoctoral Fellow will also have opportunities for collaboration with investigators affiliated with the Rutgers-Princeton Center for Computational Cognitive Neuro-Psychiatry ( CCNP; https://ccnp.princeton.edu/about-ccnp/), including through an NIH-funded center on Latent Cause Inference (https://lciconte.pni.princeton.edu/). Together, CAHBIR, the CCNP, and a broad network of Rutgers-affiliated clinical partners provide an exceptional environment for training in clinically focused computational and cognitive neuroscience research

The Postdoctoral Associate will contribute to ongoing projects and have the opportunity to develop independent research aligned with the aims of the ADN lab. Current work focuses on machine learning and multivariate decoding of neuroimaging data to predict subjective experiences and individual differences, as well as cognitive modeling of decision-making in both lab and realworld settings. Successful candidates will be supported in building a research program at the intersection of these areas. While the research focus is flexible, the Postdoctoral Associate is expected to collaborate with the PI and team to design, conduct, and publish analyses using existing datasets that integrate neuroimaging and detailed phenotypic data to investigate mechanisms relevant to addiction and recovery.

The final salary offer may be determined by several factors, including, but not limited to, the candidate's qualifications, experience, and expertise, and availability of department or grant funds to support the position. We also take into consideration market benchmarks, if and when appropriate, and internal equity to ensure fair compensation relative to the university's broader compensation structure. We are committed to offering competitive and flexible compensation packages to attract and retain top talent.

Rutgers offers a comprehensive benefits package to eligible employees, based on position, which includes:

For detailed information on benefits and eligibility, please visit: http://uhr.rutgers.edu/benefits/benefits-overview.

This position requires a fully on-site work arrangement.