Employment Opportunities

Undergraduate Research Opportunities

We have many ongoing research projects in the Lab for Affective Neuroscience and in the Waisman Lab for Brain Imaging and Behavior, providing ample opportunities for undergraduate students to gain valuable research experience. Students have the opportunity to work with staff, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, other undergraduate students and to perform a variety of duties as needed for each project.

Requirements: Students must be willing to commit to register for a minimum of two semesters (Fall & Spring) of research credit in the laboratory or have Federal Work-Study funding financial aid. Current positions may have additional requirements.

How to: Please complete this application and email it to the supervisor listed for the position you are interested in, or the student hiring coordinator, .

Summer 2012 Undergraduate Research Opportunities

UW Students:

We only consider exceptional UW-Madison undergraduate students able to work in the labs for both Summer and beyond (who can commit to at least 2 semesters of research credit work during Fall and Spring). UW-Madison students have the option to work on a paid hourly basis during the Summer and to earn research credit during the subsequent academic year. If interested, please submit a completed application and transcript to .

Non-UW Students:

We rarely accept non-UW students. Because our laboratory is a large and complex place, it takes a significant amount of time to be trained to do meaningful tasks. We may consider accepting exceptional non-UW-Madison undergraduate students who can commit to at least 2 contiguous semesters of unpaid non-credit work with the labs on a volunteer basis only. If you are a non-UW-Madison student and wish to volunteer in the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience for 2 or more semesters, please send your CV, transcript & a cover letter explaining why you wish to work in the lab to . Please be sure to detail any prior research experience or special skills you may have.

Project Coordinators interested in hiring students for Summer 2012:

  • (strong analytic skills a plus)
  • (unpaid volunteers only)
  • (programming skills a plus; see more details here)
  • (see more details here)
  • (programming skills a plus)
  • (programming skills and/or experience with running subjects, particularly children a plus)
  • (research experience, background in working with children a plus; see more details here)
  • (programming skills a plus)
  • (see more details here)

How to: Please complete this application and email it to the supervisor listed for the position you are interested in, or the student hiring coordinator, .

So you want to apply to graduate school and work in the Davidson lab:

If you are reading this, you likely have some interest in our work.  We appreciate the interest and hope that more students get seriously involved in this kind of work since there are so many wonderful outstanding questions remaining to be studied and understood. 

Our lab relies on very sophisticated neuroimaging and other related biological methods to make inferences about processes in the brain and body during emotion, in psychopathology and in response to interventions designed to change emotion and cognition, including meditation.  These methods require a lot of technical background to master.  Among the most important skills that are required are programming, and statistical and quantitative skills.  In addition, significant course work in computer science, biology (neuroscience) and physics are extremely important and very highly recommended.  It is not at all necessary that incoming students be Psychology majors.  In fact, some of our most successful students have been Physics, Computer Science and Neuroscience majors as undergraduates. 

In addition, it is enormously helpful to have significant research experience before applying to graduate school.  This typically means spending several years post college in a laboratory as a research assistant.  Dr Davidson almost never accept a student directly from college.  Virtually every one of the students in our lab has spent some time (often a lot of time) following college working in a laboratory setting. 

Dr. Davidson is happy to answer whatever additional questions you might have.  Please email his assistant, . But if you wish to be seriously considered for a position in our lab, it is imperative that you have the kind of hard science, quantitative and programming background described above. 

Graduate Research Opportunities

For information on applying to the Department of Psychology as a graduate student, please see the Psychology Department's Graduate Studies webpage.

Please see here for a description of our facilities and here for more information on our research. Who are our current graduate students, post-docs and scientists?

Students interested in pursuing graduate or post-doctoral training in our laboratory should be familiar with our research. For an overview, we suggest the following articles:

Pre- and Post-Doctoral Research Opportunities

The Training Program in Emotion Research, funded by an NIMH Institutional National Research Service Award training grant, supports 7 pre-doctoral and 3 post-doctoral trainees in emotion research each year.

Staff Opportunities


SCIENTIFIC DIRECTOR

The Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior and the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds invites applicants with a strong record of academic achievement and scientific leadership. Commitment to and enthusiasm for an interdisciplinary approach to affective and contemplative neuroscience including applying these methods to the study of developmental neuroscience, child development or neurodevelopmental disorders is essential as well as a compelling vision for the development and future of these fields. The successful candidate will have a successful record of serving as principal investigator on extramurally supported research projects and a solid competency in at least several of our key methodologies: structural MRI, fMRI, EEG, psychophysiology, neuroendocrine, immune, genetic, epigenetic. In addition, a demonstrated ability for strategic thinking and a methodical approach to the implementation of neuroimaging research is required.

The Scientific Director will work in partnership with Dr. Richard J. Davidson, a globally recognized leader in the fields of affective and contemplative neuroscience, and his collaborative leadership team in three key areas: strategic planning and setting research direction, ensuring the research conducted is at the highest quality level, and providing high-level project oversight so as to ensure the research is conducted as efficiently as possible. It is anticipated that the Scientific Director would become a scientific collaborator on many of the research projects for which he/she was providing oversight.

  • 30% Envision that the Scientific Director will be able to pursue his/her own research interests via participation in the strategic planning process, and through writing grants to support his/her own work.
  • 15% Actively participate in the conceptualization phase of new research before projects are initiated.
  • 35% Participate in training the next generation of scientists by providing day-to-day supervision of scientists, postdocs & graduate students and serve as a resource and mentor for those individuals
  • 15% Keep projects on track and moving forward with regard to timeliness & accountabilities (ensure the projects move forward through others and that milestones & deliverables are met e.g. progress reports and publications in the highest quality research journals).
  • 5% In addition to collaborative research, the successful candidate will play a vital role in affective and contemplative neuroscience education and outreach via public and scientific presentations, participating in donor development and responding to media requests when needed.

Interested applicants see PVL 73221 for more information, and send Curriculum Vitae to agerarden@wisc.edu.