Doktorandin / Doktorand Psychologie — Universitäre Psychiatrische Dienste Bern (UPD)

Full description

Teaching and Research Directorate

Do you want to conduct research with social relevance, contribute to the early detection of mental illnesses and help develop a young field of research? Then you are exactly right with us! As part of the EARLY study, you accompany children, adolescents and their parents in an already ongoing, well-characterized longitudinal study. Together we investigate the development of personality functions, traits, psychopathology and attachment in order to better understand developmental processes and risk factors and to enable clinical risk stratification in the future. You will also work on the evaluation of free text responses using Large Language Models (LLM) and identify linguistic markers of impaired personality development. With the start of the first follow-up survey in autumn 2026, you will have the ideal introduction to a dissertation. You can expect a varied research environment with a lot of personal responsibility and creative leeway: You take responsibility for your own subprojects, publish as a first author and develop a forward-looking competence profile at the interface of clinical psychology and natural language processing (NLP)/large language models (LLM). You benefit from structured scientific support, attractive training and conference opportunities, an interdisciplinary and internationally networked research team and remuneration according to the guidelines of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).

Your tasks

• Prepare complex longitudinal data, analyze and interpret it with R or Python
• You develop and use modern LLM and NLP methods to analyze free text data
• You publish scientific results and present them at national and international conferences
• You will conduct data collection, including diagnostic interviews, and assist study participants throughout the course of the study.
• You maintain and manage the study database and ensure high data quality
• You support the supervision of master students and interns
• With your research you make an important contribution to the early detection of mental illnesses in children and adolescents

Your profile

• You have completed a master’s degree in psychology
• You have very good statistical knowledge and practical experience in data analysis
• You bring solid programming skills in R or Python
• You are curious about innovative methods – especially in the field of LLM and text analysis
• You work independently, structured and conscientiously
• You enjoy working with different professions as well as with young people and their families
• You have very good knowledge of German and English
• Advantage – but not a must: You have already gained initial experience with NLP/text data or clinical-diagnostic interviews

The UPZ

The Universitäre Psychiatrische Zentrum Bern (UPZ) is the leading centre of excellence for psychiatry and psychotherapy in the capital region. It ensures psychiatric care in the Canton of Bern along the entire supply chain, from early diagnosis to outpatient, day-care and inpatient therapies to rehabilitation and forensics. With more than 30 locations, the UPZ offers a comprehensive supply network. In addition, the UPZ makes an important contribution in the areas of teaching, training and further education as well as research.

Your place of work

University Psychiatric Center Bern (UPZ) Bolligenstrasse 111, 3000 Bern 60