PhD Position in Multisensory Development

About the role

The project aims to investigate neural and behavioural mechanisms of cognitive development using immersive virtual reality combined with vestibular stimulation, EEG and eye‑tracking. The PhD candidate will develop and run multisensory experiments with children and adolescents.

Key responsibilities

• Design and implement VR experiments, integrate stimulus presentation with stimulation and recording systems, and calibrate task difficulty across ages.
• Ensure precise synchronization of devices, verify timing accuracy, and document technical procedures.
• Recruit and test participants (6‑15 years), collect multimodal data and conduct standardised cognitive assessments.
• Develop reproducible workflows for processing EEG, eye‑tracking and behavioural data together with VR and vestibular event logs.
• Prepare manuscripts, present at conferences and contribute to open‑science practices.

Required profile

• Master’s degree in engineering or a quantitative discipline completed before the start date.
• Strong programming skills in MATLAB and Python, demonstrated through experimental or data‑acquisition software development.
• Hands‑on experience with at least two of the following: EEG, VR development, eye‑tracking, controlled vestibular stimulation.
• Proficiency in R for data handling and statistical analysis.
• Experience conducting experiments with human participants and willingness to work with children and adolescents.
• German sufficient for independent recruitment and communication; scientific English required.

Required skills

• MATLAB
• Python
• R
• EEG acquisition and preprocessing
• VR development (Unity/C# or comparable)
• Eye‑tracking
• Controlled vestibular stimulation

What we offer

• Close supervision with regular scientific and methodological feedback.
• Opportunity to shape doctoral research within the PREDICT project and collaborate with international partners.
• Access to an interdisciplinary research community linking biomedical engineering, neuroscience and clinical research.
• Training in multimodal experimentation, neurophysiological analysis and reproducible research.
• Support for scientific publications, conference presentations and a salary in line with Swiss SNSF and University of Bern regulations.