Postdoctoral Researcher in Human Stress, Motivation and Translational Biomarkers — EPFL

Full description

Mission Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)-funded project on human motivation, stress physiology, immersive behavioral testing, and biological phenotyping. The Laboratory of Behavioral Genetics at EPFL, led by Prof. Carmen Sandi, is seeking an outstanding postdoctoral researcher with a strong technical and quantitative profile to join a SNSF-funded project investigating human motivation and stress responsiveness. The project will develop and validate individually calibrated behavioral tasks in immersive virtual reality (VR) to quantify effort-based motivation, vigor, persistence, and goal-directed versus habitual control. It will then test how acute stress alters these processes, combining behavioral performance, physiological monitoring, movement-based phenotyping, and advanced statistical and computational analyses. This position is part of a broader two-position recruitment linked to the same SNSF-funded project. The present call is for the position focused on human experimental implementation, participant recruitment, psychobiological assessment, biological sampling, and translational biomarker integration. A complementary position will focus more specifically on multimodal sensing, experimental systems, physiological and movement data, and advanced behavioral data analysis. The position is funded for three years. In line with standard EPFL procedures, the contract is issued on a one-year basis and renewable annually, subject to satisfactory progress and institutional regulations. Project background Understanding how stress influences motivated behavior requires experimental approaches that combine rigorous behavioral testing with careful assessment of individual differences and biological stress responses. In this project, participants will complete immersive behavioral tasks designed to measure how they choose, initiate action, sustain effort, adapt to changing contingencies, and respond to acute stress. The study will combine a standardized acute stress manipulation and behavioral assessments in VR, physiological monitoring, and biological sampling. In addition to endocrine measures, we are eventually interested -in the second part of the project implementation- in integrating broader hormonal, metabolic, inflammatory, and mitochondrial-related biomarkers to better characterize individual biological profiles linked to stress responsiveness and motivated behavior. A central aim is to develop and validate novel motivational tasks for VR and to understand how anxiety-related traits, stress physiology, and biological response profiles shape motivated behavior. The successful candidate will play a key role in ensuring that the human experimental pipeline is scientifically rigorous, ethically sound, well organized, and suitable for future translational applications. Main responsibilities The postdoctoral researcher will lead the human experimental and translational phenotyping arm of the project.

• Responsibilities will include:
• Coordinating participant recruitment, screening, scheduling, consent, testing, and retention.
• Implementing the human experimental protocol with high fidelity, including acute stress and neutral control sessions, VR-based behavioral tasks, questionnaires, physiological recordings, and biological sampling.
• Developing and maintaining standard operating procedures for participant flow, stress testing, biological sample collection, sample processing, data tracking, and quality control.
• Training and supervising Master’s students, research assistants, or junior lab members involved in recruitment, participant testing, biological sample handling, and data entry.
• Overseeing saliva collection, processing, labeling, storage, and coordination of endocrine assays, particularly cortisol.
• Contributing to the possible extension of the project toward blood-based hormonal, metabolic, inflammatory, or mitochondrial-related biomarkers.
• Ensuring high-quality participant-facing implementation.