Funded PhD position - ISEY and Leverhulme Trust

Location
Stratford Campus

Salary
The studentship will cover full tuition fees at the Home (UK-based) student rate and a maintenance grant for 3 years, at the rate of £21,237 pa.

Post Type
Full Time

Closing Date
Sunday 17 August 2025

Reference
PHD002-25

A funded PhD position is available on a project funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Description below: 

The density of information content in screen media – i.e., the light, volume and pitch changes from which we extract meaning – has increased continuously since we have been producing it. Our brains work by generating and testing predictions – but younger brains, which are messy and inefficient, are presumably less good at ‘keeping up’ with fast-paced information. What happens when information is presented ‘too fast’ for our brains to keep up with? Curiously, this question has received virtually no research. We propose to leverage state-of-the-art techniques to measure how young brains track information content within screen media in real-time.

The project will involve collecting and analysing EEG, fNIRS and home wearable recordings from babies and children. Experience of advanced data analytics, including if possible experience of coding in Matlab and/or Python, is highly desirable. Experience of collecting neuroimaging and/or wearables data from infants/children is also desirable.

The project will be based at the Institute for the Science of Early Years (www.isey.org ) in London, UK. Supervision will be by Prof Sam Wass (www.profsamwass.com ) (UEL, UK), with Prof Davidson (UEL, UK), Prof Rachel Barr (Georgetown, US) and Dr Sarah Jessen (Lübeck, Germany) as co-supervisors. The PhDs will start in Sept 25 or Jan 26.

Funding Notes

The studentship will cover full tuition fees at the Home (UK-based) student rate and a maintenance grant for 3 years, at the rate of £21,237 pa. The Studentship also comes with access to additional funding in the form of a research training support grant which is available to fund conference attendance, fieldwork, secondments, etc.

For more information, and details of how to apply, please contact the ISEY technical director, Muhammad Ehatisham Ul Haq M.Ehatisham-Ul-Haq@uel.ac.uk .