Research Assistant/Associate: Akili Mali study

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Salary
Research Assistant: £32,546 to £34,132 per annum (pro rata).
Research Associate: £35,116 to £42,882 per annum (pro rata).

The Role
Your role will be Research Associate/Assistant for a global health project in Tanzania, ‘Akili Mali'. Akili Mali (Brain Wealth) is a community co-produced study in Tanzania with scale up to other African countries. It is led by Newcastle University, with University of Sheffield, University of East Anglia, University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) and University of Ibadan (Nigeria). The aims of Akili Mali are to develop and validate a culturally appropriate neuropsychological battery sensitive to early cognitive change in diverse populations of older people in Africa, to inform future dementia prevention studies.

What will I be doing?
This will involve working closely with a diverse international team including clinicians, lay members and NGOs to coordinate and analyse neuropsychological, clinical and environmental data. It also involves community co-production, and co design of protocols with community members, to set up a community feasibility cohort in three villages in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania. During the community data collection phase, you will be coordinating and monitoring data collection and harmonisation with community partners. We are seeking to obtain ongoing funding for the study, so the post holder will be encouraged to work on funding applications individually or collectively.

What we are looking for
You will need to be a clear communicator, flexible and adaptable and have good organisational and problem-solving skills. We are looking for a person with good statistical analysis skills in this or a related field. A focus of the neuropsychological study is language (acoustic and verbal fluency) and spatial navigation measures, so knowledge or experience of these areas will be useful but not essential. For the research associate role, a PhD in a relevant field is needed (psychology/neuropsychology, mental health, dementia, epidemiology). Experience of global health or cross-cultural work would be very useful, as would previous experience of working with communities, and knowledge and experience of cognitive and/or neuropsychological assessment.

To apply for the position, we will need your CV and a cover letter outlining how you are suitable for the role using evidence to highlight how you meet the essential criteria in the knowledge, skills and experience as listed in the job description.

This post is part-time, fixed-term for a period of 12 months, 40% WTE ( 14.80 hours per week).

Special circumstances (optional) -
The role does not necessarily involve travel, but there is the possibility of in-person fieldwork/field supervision depending on the needs of the study and wishes of the candidate and the presence of any health restrictions.
Since the data collection is international, the post may lend itself to remote working.

For informal enquiries contact: stella-maria.paddick@ncl.ac.uk.

Find out more about the Faculty of Medical Sciences here: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/medical-sciences/

Find out more about our Research Institutes here: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/medical-sciences/research/institutes/.

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