Postdoc Position: CMT Patients’ Use of Audiovisual Information While Listening

1. Introduction

Join an international research project exploring how Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease affects listening in real-life conversations. As a postdoctoral researcher at Radboud University, you will study audiovisual speech perception, collaborate with global partners, and contribute to advancing knowledge with societal impact.

2. Job description

We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher for the NWO Open Competition M project ’Hidden Hearing and Speech Deficits in Patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease’. Hearing ability is indispensable in our society. For patients with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (nerve disease in the peripheral nerves), this skill is less obvious. They appear to be less able to hear the order of speech sounds and pitch and to understand clearly spoken sentences with background noise. It is unclear whether listeners with CMT also have more difficulty listening to natural conversation when they can not only hear but also see the speaker.

The project is part of an international consortium of Radboud University, Amsterdam UMC, University of Massachusetts Amherst (USA) and the University of Melbourne (Australia). You will work at Radboud University. Within this subproject, you will study to what extent (and how and why) CMT affects listening to spontaneous conversations in an audiovisual context.

You will be involved in designing, conducting, analysing and disseminating the research. The research will be conducted partly at the BSI lab and partly at patients’ homes, with facilities for various research methods (including spatialised listening and phoneme discrimination).

The research focuses on adolescents and adults with CMT. You will formulate research questions and devise an appropriate method. You will analyse complex data, present the results at conferences, and publish in peer-reviewed journals. You will also be an active member of the BSI in Nijmegen.

3. Profile

• You have or are about to obtain a PhD in psycholinguistics, cognitive neuroscience, or a related field.
• You have an interest in audiovisual speech perception.
• You have excellent interpersonal skills, and the ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• You have experience in designing and conducting experiments.
• You preferably have experience in project management.
• You have experience with Praat (or Matlab/Python), and with using advanced statistical methods and writing code.
• You preferably have experience with setting up and analysing spatialised listening experiments.
• You have excellent oral and written skills in English. 

4. We are

You will be based at the Behavioural Science Institute (BSI), where you will work within the framework of the Learning, Education, & Development research programme. Within this programme, researchers conduct fundamental and applied research into individual differences in learning and development among children, teenagers and adolescents. 

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 employees are well-supported in a work culture that promotes collaboration and respect. 

5. We offer

• We will give you a temporary employment contract of 1 year.
• Your salary within salary scale 11 depends on your previous education and number of years of (relevant) work experience. The amounts in the scale are based on a 38-hour working week.
• 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 Dr. Marco van de Ven. In the application form, you will find which documents you need to include with your application. We look forward to receiving your application.

The first interviews will take place on 15 October. Any second interview will take place on 22 October. You will preferably start your employment on 1 November 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. 

Do you already work at Radboud University and have questions about making an internal move? Learn more about internal applications.