Research Fellow in Paediatric Cancer Pain

About us The mission of the UCL GOS Institute of Child Health is to maximise and advocate for the holistic health of all children, young people and the adults they will become, through world-class research, education and public engagement. The UCL GOS ICH, together with its clinical partner Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, forms the largest concentration of children’s health research outside North America. The 2024-29 GOS ICH strategy focuses on its five scientific programmes. GOS ICH’s activities include active engagement with children and families, to ensure that our work is relevant and appropriate to their needs. GOS ICH generates the funding for our research by setting out our proposals in high quality applications to public, charitable and industrial funding bodies and disseminates the results of our research by publication in the medical and scientific literature, to clinicians, policy makers and the wider public. The Institute offers world-class education and training across a wide range of teaching and life learning programmes which address the needs of students and professional groups who are interested in and undertaking work relevant to child health. GOS ICH holds an Athena SWAN Charter Gold Award.

About the role We are seeking a Postdoctoral Research Associate (PDRA) to evaluate pain and quality of life in adolescent survivors of haematological cancer. The postholder will recruit adolescents at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH). Detailed phenotyping will include: i) history, screening tools and validated questionnaires; ii) quantitative sensory testing; and iii) executive processing and cognitive function assessment. This is a collaborative project with the Paediatric Pain Research Group (Suellen Walker), Haematology/Oncology Late Effects Clinic (Vesna Pavasovic), GOSH Pain Service (Helen Laycock) University of Manchester (Anna Hood), and our patient partners. Fixed-term full-time post; 3 years; available from September 2024 (£42,099 - 45,521pa).    

About you You are a postdoc with research experience in psychology, neuroscience, or a related field relevant to paediatric pain research. You have experience in conducting high quality research, computer skills for collating and analysing data, and have prepared results for presentation and/or publication. You have excellent communication and time management skills, can work collaboratively within a team. You have the interpersonal skills to interact with adolescents and families and are eligible to undertake Good Clinical Practice training and fulfil regulatory requirements for working with children. You are looking for opportunities to present research to funders, patient partners, and at scientific meetings. You are interested in career development and the UCL Doctoral Skills Development Programme.

What we offer Visit https://www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/reward-and-benefits  to find out more. 

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion As London’s Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world’s talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong. We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL’s workforce. These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; LGBTQI+ people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women. You can read more about our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion here : https://www.ucl.ac.uk/equality-diversity-inclusion/ If you have any queries regarding the application process, please contact Madhur Sharma on ich.hr@ucl.ac.uk quoting job reference.

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