Postdoctoral Research Associate (Maternity Cover) - King's College London

The Faculty  

The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) is a School of King's College London and the largest academic community in Europe devoted to the study and prevention of mental illness and brain disease. The IoPPN broadens the remit of the former Institute of Psychiatry to consolidate King's neurosciences, with the addition of the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases and the MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology.  

 The complementary roles of the IoPPN are:  (i) to pioneer research into new and improved ways of understanding and treating mental illness and brain disease; (ii) to offer advanced research training for psychiatrists, psychologists, neurologists and other scientific and paramedical workers.  The IoPPN's greatest strength is the interdisciplinary nature of both its research strategy and educational activities, providing unique opportunities for students and staff.  

 The IoPPN comprises three Academic Divisions in Neurosciences; Psychiatry; and Psychological & Systems Sciences. These encompass researchers with interests in addictions, biostatistics, child and adolescent psychiatry, basic and clinical neuroscience, forensic mental health sciences, health service and population research, neuroimaging, psychology, psychological medicine, old age psychiatry and psychosis studies. The Institute also hosts an NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health and an NIHR Dementia Unit, as well as the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre.  

The IoPPN offers a range of Diploma, BSc, MSc, MPhil, and PhD courses in psychiatry, psychology and related basic and clinical neurosciences. 

The Department of SGDP  

The Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, based at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience in London, is the only centre of its kind in the world. It is a lively and interesting place to work with a friendly environment.  

The goal of the Centre is to investigate the effects of ‘nature’ (genetics) and ‘nurture’ (environment) as they interact and as people grow up. New and exciting collaborative and interdisciplinary research and training are the hallmarks of the Centre. Research (for instance using twin studies or molecular genetics) is central to our theme and, properly applied, can tell us as much about the environment as about genetics. The Centre gives a high priority to its PhD students who have typically been of very high quality and who will be the outstanding scientists and doctors of the future. The Centre also provides training at its annual Summer School and exceptional research training for clinicians due to the critical mass of interdisciplinary expertise gathered under one roof. The Centre’s research furthers mankind’s understanding of the root causes of common problems such as anxiety, depression, autism, disruptive behaviour or intellectual impairment. The Centre’s aim is to be able to trace pathways between genes and behaviours at all levels of analysis from cells to social systems. Ultimately the Centre’s unique contribution will be in discovering both new treatments and ways to prevent illnesses occurring in the first place.

About The Role

We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher to cover maternity leave within Inherit Lab, a group of researchers focussed on the genetically informed study of the intergenerational transmission of mental health problems. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/inherit-lab

In Inherit Lab we are interested in understanding mental health in families. We study large family databases to understand the role of genetic and environmental factors in the intergenerational continuity of mental health problems and associated traits. Our approach to research incorporates methodological techniques from the fields of quantitative genetics, causal inference, epidemiology and more. We are seeking a postdoctoral researcher with relevant experience in quantitative/behavioural genetics, epidemiology, statistics, or other quantitative mental health research.

The successful candidate will have three roles: research, leadership of the Family Footsteps public involvement and engagement project, and some teaching responsibilities.

• Research will be conducted under the supervision of Dr Tom McAdams. You will use data from the Norwegian Mother Father and Child Birth Cohort Study (>90k families followed from pregnancy through child development), the Twins Early Development Study (10k twin pairs followed from birth to adulthood). These datasets comprise extended families and include mental health data and DNA on parents and children. Research projects will focus on mental health in families (parent-child effects) and will involve one or more of the following:

o   Gene-environment interaction: Genetically mediated sensitivity to environmental stressors.

o   The impact of treatment (for ADHD in children/depression in parents) on the untreated family members.

o   Selection bias: identifying the biases associated with selective participation/attrition in cohort studies and how we can correct for them.

• Family Footsteps is a public involvement and engagement project focussed on creating dialogue between parents with an interest in mental health and mental health researchers. Consultation workshops have taken place over the last year. Next steps will be creating and running an online survey and engaging in dissemination of our findings in collaboration with charity partners. The successful candidate will lead on this. More information can be found here: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/family-footsteps 
• Teaching responsibilities will involve assisting Dr McAdams to run an MSc module. This will involve running several research methods practical sessions and providing some lectures.

This is a full-time post (35 Hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract until October 2025. Part-time applicants will be considered (no less than 50% FTE). A contract extension beyond the period of maternity cover is possible.