mercredi 31 mai 2017

PhD

Very excited  to be offering this opportunity for the right person, please share as this is a rare opportunity:

We are welcoming applications for a fully funded PhD studentship for an interdisciplinary project between the Autism Research & Innovation Centre and the Animal, Behaviour, Cognition & Welfare Research Group, supported by the Doctoral Training Alliance for Applied Biosciences in Health. The project aims to develop an Animal-Assisted Intervention (AAI) toolkit of learning activities for promoting social-communication skills and well-being in children on the autism spectrum. Because of the interdisciplinary nature of the project, it is centred at The Lincoln Institute for Health. 
The Lincoln Institute for Health (LIH) is a university-wide multidisciplinary research collaboration linking schools, colleges and external partners to investigate key issues of concern for health, social care and well-being using a ‘cell to community’ approach. The LIH is led by Professor Chris Bridle, and comprises a wide range of active research groups, including the Molecular Basis of Disease Research Group, Drug Design and Delivery Research Group, the Animal Behaviour, Cognition and Welfare Research Group, the Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems, the Laboratory of Vision Engineering, the Health Advancement Research Team, the Perception Action and Cognition Research Group, the Healthy Ageing Research Group, the Community and Health Research Unit, the Policy Studies Research Centre, and the Autism Research & Innovation Centre.
The LIH conducts internationally excellent and world-class research to develop innovative health and social care technologies, treatments and improve health systems.  In the recent Research Excellence Framework (2014) assessment the LIH was ranked 9th out of 98 UK University submissions for the quality of the research conducted by its researchers.  

 
By integrating psychology and pedagogy in human-animal interactions, the current PhD research project has the potential to deliver new intervention strategies for strengthening fundamental core skills crucial in social communication, aligned with current educational and clinical practices used in autism. Specifically, this project will build upon existing work in human-animal interaction and educational interactive activities for children on the autism spectrum conducted at the University of Lincoln, to deliver an evidence-based AAI for facilitating the development of core socio-communicative skills (e.g., joint attention, pointing, social-emotional reciprocity, verbal and non-verbal language) in children across the autism spectrum and developmental stages. Due to the unique innovative nature of our project we have formed a multidisciplinary supervisory team of academic experts in autism, animal behaviour and education to support the PhD student.
Applicants from psychology, clinical psychology, education or related areas are all eligible to apply. For further information contact Dr Niko Kagras (01522 886 726 / nkargas@lincoln.ac.uk). Applicants should have a first or upper second class honours degree or equivalent in a relevant area. An application of a 1-page CV and a 1-page covering letter should be e-mailed to Susan Leigh (sleigh@lincoln.ac.uk). 
Discipline: Psychology and Life Sciences
Subject: Autism interventions
Keywords:  Autism, Animal-Assisted Interventions, Education
Stipend: £14,529 per annum 
Closing Date: 16 June 2017
Interviews: Provisional date w/c 26 June 2017
Reference: LIH