Title of the Position: Postgraduate Associate
Department and School: Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine Anticipated Appointment Dates: December 01, 2025 – November 30, 2026
Email/Website: denis.sukhodolsky@yale.edu / https://medicine.yale.edu/lab/sukhodolsky
Introduction of School/Department:
The Yale Child Study Center is a Department of the Yale University School of Medicine which is dedicated to research, training, and clinical services for children and families. The Child Study Center brings together various disciplines including psychiatry, psychology, genetics, neurobiology, social work, and education. The work of the Center focuses on the psychological, social, developmental, and cognitive aspects of child life and includes a spectrum as wide as the genetic, biochemical, neuroimaging, psychopharmacologic, and treatment studies of serious problems of childhood including disruptive behavior disorders, ADHD, Tourette Syndrome and autism.
Overview of Position
The Sukhodolsky lab at the Yale Child Study Center is looking to fill a postgraduate (post- baccalaureate) position associated with behavioral and neuroimaging studies of children, adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorder. Primary responsibilities will include study coordination of the multi-site Autism Center of Excellence study of neurodevelopmental biomarkers of late diagnosis in autism, subject recruitment and community outreach, running subjects through clinical assessments, running fMRI scanning experiments, and managing study databases. Other responsibilities will include assisting with clinical and neuroimaging studies of social and emotional functioning in children with neurodevelopmental disorders. In addition to the current studies with children on the autism spectrum, the Sukhodolsky lab conducts clinical research in the areas of childhood irritability, ADHD, Tourette Syndrome and OCD.
Education:
Postgraduate associates in the lab gain deep knowledge of developmental psychopathology and benefit from a collaborative environment by contributing to all projects. The postgraduate associates will be trained in a variety of aspects of clinical research and will gain experience in childhood neurodevelopmental disorders. The positions include the following training opportunities:
Training:
1) Train on how to guide children and families through clinical and neuroimaging studies. Learn to administer, score and interpret measures of social behavior, anxiety, irritability, and neurocognitive functioning to children and adolescents. 2) Become familiar with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques that are used in the Sukhodolsky lab to examine brain mechanisms of autism and related neurodevelopmental disorders. Postgraduate associates will learn the importance of the interface with families during all parts of the research process. 3) Postgraduate associate will be trained to administer, score and interpret psychological assessments of symptoms, intelligence, and adaptive functioning as well as neurocognitive tasks for evaluating brain mechanisms of cognitive and emotional functioning.
Mentoring:
Mentoring will consist of individual meetings with Dr. Sukhodolsky and attendance of weekly lab meetings. The primary goal of mentoring will be to prepare post-graduate associated for successful application for graduate programs in clinical psychology, neuroscience or medication schools. Additional mentoring will be focused on learning about data management and analysis in clinical research with pediatric populations, and preparation and co-authoring manuscripts based on current and past research studies in the lab.
Location:
New Haven, CT
The Postgraduate Associate position is for two years with the second-year appointment conditional of progress made in the first year. First year salary is $44,400 plus healthcare coverage.
Qualifications:
BA or BS required. Psychology, Pre-Med, or Neuroscience background required with research experience, including data management with Excel and/or SPSS, and experience of working with children on the autism spectrum. Postgraduate positions are open to those who have recently received a bachelor and/or master’s degree, but not doctoral degrees.
Process to apply:
Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. Please submit you application as a single PDF file named as “Last name_First name.pdf” and containing a letter of interest, resume, and a copy of academic transcript (does not need to be official) to Denis Sukhodolsky, Ph.D., at denis.sukhodolsky@yale.edu. Please also arrange for two letters of recommendation to be emailed directly to denis.sukhodolsky@yale.edu.