University of Birmingham
Research Fellow in Multimodal Language Comprehension, Ageing and Cognitive Neuroscience - School of Psychology - 107875 - Grade 7
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Position Details
School of Psychology
Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK
Full time starting salary: normally in the range £36,636 to £46,049 with potential progression once in post to £48,822
Grade: 7
Full Time, Fixed Term contract: up to July 2028
Closing date: 27th August 2026
Background
To create and disseminate knowledge through initiating and conducting original research and through publication, as appropriate to the disciplinary area.
The post will support a research programme on multimodal language comprehension, ageing and individual differences within the School of Psychology and the Centre for Human Brain Health at the University of Birmingham. The project investigates how younger and older adults attend to and integrate speech, mouth movements and co-speech gestures during naturalistic communication, and how age-related differences in hearing, attention and cognitive control shape comprehension under uncertainty.
The post-holder will contribute to research using controlled but naturalistic video-based language comprehension paradigms, MEG and rapid invisible frequency tagging (RIFT) to quantify attention to, and integration of, auditory and visual speech cues. The role will contribute to the development of new mechanistic understanding of multimodal communication across the lifespan and will support dissemination through publications, conference presentations and public/scientific engagement.
Role Summary
The Research Fellow will initiate and conduct original research which has measurable outcomes and is reflected in a growing national and often incipient international reputation. The Research will focus on multimodal integration of gestures and language in older age. The post-holder will contribute to the design and implementation of experimental studies with younger and older adults, using behavioural and neuroimaging/neurophysiological methods, including MEG and RIFT.
The role will involve:
- Planning, designing and coordinating research activities and programmes
- Contributing to the development of research strategies
- Publishing results of own research
- Supervising PhD students
- Ethics applications and preparation of study materials
- Overseeing participant recruitment and testing
- Analysing behavioural and neurophysiological data
- Preparing manuscripts and conference presentations
- Contributing to the broader research environment of the School of Psychology and CHBH
- Contributing to School through leadership
- Developing and making substantial contributions to knowledge transfer, business engagement, public engagement activities, widening participation, Schools’ outreach or similar activities at School level or further within the University
The post-holder will be expected to work independently while also collaborating closely with Professors Swaab and Segaert, project collaborators, research staff and students.
Main Duties
To plan and carry out high-quality research on multimodal language comprehension, ageing and cognitive neuroscience, using appropriate behavioural, neuroimaging and computational/statistical methods. This may include:
- Pursue personal research including developing research ideas and winning support, including financial support
- Plan, publish and/or execute high quality research
- Develop, refine and implement experimental paradigms investigating how younger and older adults attend to and integrate speech, mouth movements and co-speech gestures.
- Coordinate and conduct studies using controlled naturalistic video materials, MEG and rapid invisible frequency tagging (RIFT), including preparation of stimuli, protocols and data acquisition procedures.
- Contribute to ethics applications, participant-facing materials, data management plans and open-science practices.
- Project manage research activities, and supervise other research staff
- Coordinate and conduct studies using controlled naturalistic video materials, MEG and rapid invisible frequency tagging (RIFT), including preparation of stimuli, protocols and data acquisition procedures.
- Contribute to ethics applications, participant-facing materials, data management plans and open-science practices.
- Recruit and test younger and older adult participants, ensuring inclusive, accessible and ethically robust procedures.
- Analyse behavioural and neurophysiological data, including MEG/RIFT data, using appropriate statistical and computational methods
- Contribute to project management, including coordinating meetings, timelines, data storage and reporting requirements.
- Work closely with the supervisory team, including Professors Swaab and Segaert, and with colleagues in the School of Psychology and CHBH
- Present high-quality findings in publications and conference proceedings
- Interpret findings in relation to theories of language comprehension, ageing, attention, prediction and audiovisual/multimodal integration.
- Prepare high-quality manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals and present findings at national and international conferences.
- Develop novel methodologies and techniques appropriate to the type of research being pursued
- Develop, refine and implement experimental paradigms investigating how younger and older adults attend to and integrate speech, mouth movements and co-speech gestures.
- Contribute to the development of new research ideas, future funding applications and collaborative research activities.
- Supervise and examine PhD students, both within and out with the University
- Provide expert advice to colleagues and students within discipline
- Contribute to the management of research across the School
- Develop and make substantial contributions to knowledge transfer, enterprise, business engagement, and public engagement activities of manifest benefit to the College and the University
- Contribute to some administrative activities within the University, typically relating to research
- Apply knowledge in a way that develops new intellectual understanding
- Actively manages equality, diversity and inclusion through monitoring and evaluation and actively challenging unacceptable behaviour
- Develop and make substantial contributions to knowledge transfer, enterprise, business engagement, and public engagement activities of manifest benefit to the College and the University
- Contribute to knowledge exchange, public engagement or outreach activities related to communication, ageing and cognitive neuroscience
- Promotes equality and values diversity acting as a role model and fostering an inclusive working culture
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Person Specification
- A PhD in psychology, cognitive neuroscience, psycholinguistics, ageing research, language science, neuroscience, or a closely related discipline.
- Extensive research experience and scholarship in language comprehension, multimodal communication, cognitive ageing, attention, prediction, speech perception, or related areas.
- Experience and achievement reflected in a growing reputation
- Extensive experience and demonstrated success in planning, undertaking and project managing research to deliver high quality results
- Excellent organisational skills, including the ability to manage timelines, coordinate research activities and work independently.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to work collaboratively with senior academics, students, research staff and participants.
- Experience conducting research with older adults or other participant groups requiring accessible and inclusive testing procedures.
- Experience with audiovisual speech, co-speech gesture, naturalistic communication, virtual humans/avatars, or video-based experimental paradigms.
- Experience with MEG analysis, frequency tagging methods, time-frequency analysis, source localisation or multimodal integration analyses.
- Experience with open science practices, including preregistration, reproducible analysis pipelines, data sharing and transparent reporting.
- Experience contributing to grant-funded research projects, collaborative research networks or public engagement activities.
- Extensive experience of applying and/or developing and devising successful models, techniques and methods
- Experience designing, conducting and analysing behavioural and/or cognitive neuroscience experiments with human participants.
- Experience with neuroimaging or neurophysiological methods, such as MEG, EEG, RIFT, eye-tracking, fMRI or related methods.
- Strong quantitative and statistical skills, with experience using relevant software such as R, Python, MATLAB, MNE, FieldTrip, or comparable tools.
- Evidence of the ability to conduct independent research and contribute intellectually to the development of a research programme.
- Extensive experience and achievement in knowledge transfer, enterprise and similar activity
- Evidence of high-quality academic writing, including publications, manuscripts in preparation, or other relevant research outputs.
- Experience of championing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in own work area
- Ability to monitor and evaluate the extent to which equality and diversity legislation, policies, procedures are applied
- Ability to identify issues with the potential to impact on protected groups and take appropriate action
- Knowledge of the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010, and how to actively ensure in day to day activity in own area that those with protected characteristics are treated equally and fairly
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Informal enquiries
To Tamara Swaab, email: t.y.swaab@bham.ac.uk
Use of AI in applications
We want to understand your genuine interest in the role and for the written elements of your application to accurately reflect your own communication style. Applications that rely too heavily on AI tools can appear generic and lack the detail we need to assess your skills and experience. Such applications will unlikely be progressed to interview.
Diversity and Inclusion
We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website [https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/about/equality-diversity-inclusion].
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