Postdoctoral Research Associate I, Department of Psychology

The Insomnia and Sleep (iSleep) Health Research Laboratory in the Department of Psychology at the University of Arizona is seeking applications for a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Clinical Psychology and Behavioral Sleep Medicine. Under the mentorship of Daniel Taylor, Ph.D., the fellow will play a key role in directing two Department of War (DOW)–funded research projects: (a) developing and evaluating a Virtual Insomnia Patient (VIP) designed to accelerate the training of new therapists, and (b) assessing the efficacy of an accelerated cognitive and behavioral treatment for insomnia, nightmares, and PTSD in active‑duty soldiers.

Outstanding U of A benefits include health, dental, vision, and life insurance; paid vacation, sick leave, and holidays; U of A/ASU/NAU tuition reduction for the employee and qualified family members; access to U of A recreation and cultural activities; and more!

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Both Studies:

• Attend weekly grant administration meetings.
• Oversee remote data collection and integrity.
• Build and/or manage existing study databases in REDCap, and lead cleaning of exported REDCap databases in SPSS and CSV formats.
• Create materials to facilitate data cleaning, including study data codebooks and data management and sharing plans.
• Help oversee a team of research assistants to conduct the studies, including all stages of the process from recruiting participants to cleaning physiological data and maintaining a secure, organized database.
• Help with report writing for funding sponsors.
• Lead any IRB submissions and modifications.
• Together with team, submit scientific papers to peer-reviewed journals.

Virtual Insomnia Patient (VIP) grant:

• Coordinate Alpha-, Beta- and comparison-study participant recruitment, consenting, assessment, randomization (where appropriate) and data collection.
• Coordinate human standardized patients in comparison study.
• Coordinate the fidelity rating of participant CBT-I sessions with standardized and real patients in the comparison study.
• Participate in weekly Technical and Clinical Team Meetings to communicate issues, feedback, etc. raised by the participants and clinical team to the technical team
• Provide the technical team with content to develop VIP statements.
• Test the VIP and write detailed notes about issues for the technical team based on issues and suggestions for the VIP from participants and the clinical team.

Accelerated Treatment Study:

• Daily monitoring of sleep diaries, Fitbit data, and pre- and post-assessments using the NIH toolbox.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Knowledge of methods for collecting and analyzing multimodal data (e.g., self‑reports, structured clinical interviews, sleep).
• Skill in written and oral communication.
• Ability to work effectively in a highly collaborative environment.
• Ability to work independently and professionally with minimal supervision or direction.
• Desire and ability to pursue a career in psychological clinical science.

• Doctorate degree in Psychology upon hire.
• Clinical/Counseling training.

• Experience in Fitbit and Fitabase data collection, REDCap form development and data collection, IRB submission and management, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy of Insomnia, and Artificial Intelligence/Large Language Models.