Employment Opportunities
Undergraduate Research Opportunities
There are many ongoing research projects in the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience that provide ample opportunities for undergraduate students to gain research experience. Students have the opportunity to work with staff, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and other undergraduate students. Students must be willing to commit to working a minimum of two semesters (fall & spring) of research credit in the laboratory or have work-study funding. If you are interested in applying to work in the laboratory, please complete this application. Completed applications can either be emailed to or put in the mailbox (located near room 238 in the Psychology department) of the laboratory manager, Isa Dolski.
Some of the current available positions are listed below:
Summer Research
Dr. Davidson enthusiastically supports the UW summer Psychology Research Experience Program (PREP) and typically welcomes one student to the lab each summer. If you are a potential PREP applicant, please check the Psychology Department's PREP website for information on how to apply.
Exceptional UW-Madison undergraduate students who are able to work in the lab beyond the summer are highly preferred to those who are only able to work during the summer. UW-Madison students have the option to work on a paid basis. If you are a UW-Madison undergraduate student who wishes to gain research experience in this lab, and you are able to continue working in the lab beyond the summer, please submit a completed application to Isa Dolski.
Each year we receive many inquiries from students at other universities & colleges who wish to work only during the summer months in the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience. We rarely accept non-UW students for such short periods of time since our laboratory is a large and complex place and it takes a significant amount of time to be trained to do meaningful tasks. We may consider accepting exceptional non-UW-Madison undergraduate students for the summer on a volunteer basis only. If you are a non-UW-Madison student and wish to volunteer in the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience for a summer, please send to the laboratory manager, Isa Dolski, your CV, transcript & a cover letter explaining why you wish to work in the lab. Please be sure to detail any prior research experience or special skills that you may have.
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. 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:
- Davidson, R. J. & Lutz, A. (2008). Buddha’s Brain: Neuroplasticity and Meditation. IEEE Signal Processing 25(1), 171-174.
- Lutz, A., Brefczynski-Lewis, J. A., Johnstone, T., & Davidson, R. J. (2008). Voluntary regulation of the neural circuitry of emotion by compassion meditation: Effects of expertise. PLoS One 3(3), e1897.
- Slagter, H. A., Lutz, A., Greischar, L. L., Francis, A. D., Nieuwenhuis, S., Davis, J. M. & Davidson, R. J. (2007). Mental training affects use of limited brain resources. PLoS Biology Vol. 5, No. 6, e138.
- Dalton, K. M., Nacewicz, B. M., Alexander, A. L., & Davidson, R. J. (2007). Gaze-fixation, brain activation and amygdala volume in unaffected siblings of individuals with autism. Biological Psychiatry 61 (4), 512-520. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2006.05.019
- Johnstone, T., van Reekum, C. M., Urry, H. L., Kalin, N. H. & Davidson R. J. (2007). Failure to regulate: Counter-productive recruitment of top-down prefrontal-subcortical circuitry in major depression. Journal of Neuroscience 27: 8877-8884; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2063-07.2007
- Larson, C. L., Nitschke J. B., & Davidson, R. J. (2007). Common and distinct patterns of affective response in dimensions of anxiety and depression. Emotion. Feb;7(1):182-91
- Nacewicz, B.M., Dalton, K.M., Johnstone, T., Long, M., McAuliff, E.M., Oakes, T.R., Alexander, A.L. & Davidson, R.J. (2006) Amygdala volume and nonverbal social impairment in adolescent and adult males with autism. Archives of General Psychiatry 63:1417-1428.
- Shackman, A. J., Sarinopoulos, I, Maxwell, J. S., Pizzagalli, D. A., Lavric, A., & Davidson, R. J. (2006). Anxiety selectively disrupts visuospatial working memory. Emotion, 6, 40-61.
- Urry, H. L., van Reekum, C. M., Johnstone, T., Kalin, N. H., Thurow, M. E., Schaefer, H. S., Jackson, C. A., Frye, C. J., Greischar, L. L., Alexander, A. L., & Davidson, R. J. (2006). Amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex are inversely coupled during regulation of negative affect and predict the diurnal pattern of cortisol secretion among older adults. Journal of Neuroscience, 26, 4415-4425.
- Rosenkranz, M. A., Busse, W. W., Johnstone, T., Swenson, C. A., Crisafi, G. M., Jackson, M. M., Bosch, J. A., Sheridan, J. F., & Davidson, R. J. (2005). Neural circuitry underlying the interaction between emotion and asthma symptom exacerbation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102, 13319-13324.
- Dalton KM, Nacewicz BM, Johnstone T, Schaefer HS, Gernsbacher MA, Goldsmith HH, Alexander AL, Davidson RJ. (2005) Gaze fixation and the neural circuitry of face processing in autism. Nature Neuroscience. 8(4):519-26.
- Fox AS, Oakes TR, Shelton SE, Converse AK, Davidson RJ, Kalin NH. (2005) Calling for help is independently modulated by brain systems underlying goal-directed behavior and threat perception. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. 102(11):4176-9.
- Lutz A, Greischar LL, Rawlings NB, Ricard M, Davidson RJ. (2004) Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 101(46):16369-73.
- Davidson RJ, Shackman AJ, Maxwell JS. (2004) Asymmetries in face and brain related to emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 8(9):389-91.
- Davidson, R. J. (2004). Well-being and affective style: neural substrates and biobehavioural correlates. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, Biological Sciences, 359(1449):1395-411.
- Chung MK, Dalton KM, Alexander AL, Davidson RJ. (2004) Less white matter concentration in autism: 2D voxel-based morphometry. NeuroImage. 23(1):242-51.
- Salomons TV, Johnstone T, Backonja MM, Davidson RJ. (2004) Perceived controllability modulates the neural response to pain. Journal of Neuroscience. 24(32):7199-203.
- Davidson, R. J., Maxwell JS, Shackman AJ (2004). The privileged status of emotion in the brain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101(33):11915-6.
- Urry HL, Nitschke JB, Dolski I, Jackson DC, Dalton KM, Mueller CJ, Rosenkranz MA, Ryff CD, Singer BH, Davidson RJ. (2004) Making a life worth living: neural correlates of well-being. Psychological Science. 2004 Jun;15(6):367-72.
- Jackson DC, Mueller CJ, Dolski I, Dalton KM, Nitschke JB, Urry HL, Rosenkranz MA, Ryff CD, Singer BH, Davidson RJ. (2003) Now you feel it, now you don't: frontal brain electrical asymmetry and individual differences in emotion regulation. Psychological Science. (6):612-7.
- Davidson RJ. (2003) Seven sins in the study of emotion: correctives from affective neuroscience. Brain and Cognition. 52(1):129-32.
- Davidson, R. J., Pizzagalli, D., Nitschke, J. B., & Putnam, K. M. (2002). Depression: Perspectives from affective neuroscience. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 545-574.
- Davidson, R.J., Jackson D.C., & Kalin, N.H. (2000). Emotion, plasticity, context and regulation: Perspectives from affective neuroscience. Psychological Bulletin, 126(6), 890-906.
Pre- and Post-Doctoral Research Opportunities
The Training Program in Emotion Research, funded by an NIMH Institutional National Research Service Award training grant, supports 8 pre-doctoral and 4 post-doctoral trainees in emotion research each year.
Staff Opportunities
None at this time.