PhD Position: Cognitive Neuroscience of Social Interactions

1. Introduction

Imagine being so worried about talking to a cashier in a store that you wait until your cupboard is bare or avoid shopping in-store all together despite expensive online delivery costs. Social anxiety has a profound impact on everyday functioning in a world full of unpredictable and emotional social interactions. This ERC-funded project aims to investigate how socially anxious individuals deal with the communicative and emotional demands of social interactions using a multidisciplinary, cognitive neuroscience approach.

2. Job description

We are seeking two highly motivated PhD candidates to join our interdisciplinary research project. One PhD position will focus on conducting a hyperscanning fMRI study, in which pairs of socially anxious individuals will engage in controlled social interactions while their brain activity is being recorded. This project aims to uncover the neural mechanisms underpinning communicative challenges in socially anxious individuals.

The second PhD candidate will investigate how socially anxious individuals regulate negative emotions that emerge during these social interactions, focusing on the ability or inability to flexibly switch between different emotion regulation strategies. As a team, the two PhD candidates will be jointly responsible for designing and setting up the studies, recruiting participants, acquiring and analysing data, and publishing the results in peer-reviewed journals. You will have a 10% teaching load and will be given the opportunity to work on your teaching portfolio for the University Teaching Qualification (UTQ).

You will be embedded in the EPAN lab of Prof. Karin Roelofs at the Experimental Psychopathology and Treatment (EPT) department of the Behavioral Science Institute and the Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour. The research will be conducted at the Donders Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging, which has state-of-the-art lab facilities and supports hyperscanning studies.

Would you like to learn more about what it’s like to pursue a PhD at Radboud University? Visit the page about working as a PhD candidate.

3. Profile

• You hold an MSc degree in cognitive neuroscience, psychology, biology or a related field.
• You have a strong interest in social anxiety, human communication and emotion regulation.
• You have a fluent command of written and spoken English.
• You have excellent social skills, a proactive attitude and team spirit.
• You have strong analytical skills.
• Preferably, you have experience with neuroimaging (MRI or EEG) data acquisition and analysis.

4. We are

You will work in an interdisciplinary team with expertise in communication, social disorders, emotion regulation and neuroscience at the Experimental Psychopathology and Treatment (EPT) department of the Behavioural Science Institute (BSI). At EPT, we aim to acquire fundamental scientific and applied knowledge to better understand the cognitive, behavioural and neurobiological mechanisms of psychopathology and its treatment. We strive to achieve this goal by empirically studying clinically relevant processes such as biased information and affective processing, approach-avoidance tendencies, cognitive control, emotion regulation, motivation, and executive functioning.

Behavioural Science Institute

The Behavioural Science Institute (BSI) is an interdisciplinary research institute where fundamental, applied, and translational research takes place, with the aim of understanding important societal issues and contributing to their solutions. BSI is one of three research institutes of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Radboud University. Our researchers collaborate across the boundaries of psychology, communication science, and pedagogical and educational science. Our mission for the upcoming years is to join forces in interdisciplinary research on the theme 'Empowering the Young'. We study the challenges that young people face in our current society and contribute to their empowerment.

BSI performs high-quality research with scientific and societal impact. To foster this, the institute provides excellent research facilities and has strong collaborations with non-academic partners. Moreover, BSI is known for its successful graduate school and strong dedication to open science and team science. We stand for a warm, inclusive, and cooperative research environment in which our staff are well-supported in a work culture that promotes collaboration and respect.

Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour

BSI participates in the Donders Institute. The Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour is a world-class interfaculty research centre that houses more than 700 researchers devoted to understanding the mechanistic underpinnings of the human mind. Research at the Donders Institute is focused around four themes:

1. Language and communication
2. Perception, action and control
3. Plasticity and memory
4. Neural computation and neurotechnology

Excellent, state-of-the-art research facilities are available for the broad range of neuroscience research that is being conducted at the Donders Institute. The Donders Institute has been assessed by an international evaluation committee as excellent and recognized as a ‘very stimulating environment for top researchers, as well as for young talent’. The Donders Institute fosters a collaborative, multidisciplinary and supportive research environment with a diverse international staff. English is the lingua franca at the Institute.

The mission of the Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging (DCCN) is to conduct cutting-edge fundamental research in cognitive neuroscience. Much of the rapid progress in this field is being driven by the development of complex neuroimaging techniques for measuring activity in the human brain - an area in which the Centre plays a leading role. The research themes cover central cognitive functions such as perception, action, control, emotion, decision-making, attention, memory, language, learning and plasticity. The Centre also aims to establish how the different brain areas coordinate their activity with very high temporal precision to enable human and animal cognition. Our internationally renowned centre currently hosts more than 100 PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers from more than 25 countries, offering a stimulating and multidisciplinary research environment. The Centre is equipped with four MRI scanners (7T, 3x 3T), a 275-channel MEG system, an EEG-TMS laboratory, several (MR-compatible) EEG systems, and high-performance computational facilities.

5. We offer

• We will give you a temporary employment contract (1.0 FTE) of 1.5 years, after which your performance will be evaluated. If the evaluation is positive, your contract will be extended by 2.5 years (4-year contract).
• You will receive a starting salary of €3,059 gross per month based on a 38-hour working week, which will increase to €3,881 in the fourth year (salary scale P).
• You will receive an 8% holiday allowance and an 8,3% end-of-year bonus. 
• We offer Dual Career Coaching. The Dual Career Coaching assists your partner via support, tools, and resources to improve their chances of independently finding employment in the Netherlands. 
• You will receive extra days off. With full-time employment, you can choose between 30 or 41 days of annual leave instead of the statutory 20. 

6. Practical information and applying

You can apply only via the button below. Address your letter of application to Saskia Koch. In the application form, you will find which documents you need to include with your application.

The first interviews will take place on Thursday 4 September. Any second interview will take place on Friday 12 September. You will preferably start your employment on 1 October 2025.

We can imagine you're curious about our application procedure. It describes what you can expect during the application procedure and how we handle your personal data and internal and external candidates.