Our interdisciplinary research team at the Beckman Institute for Advance Science and Technology is developing and applying innovative tools and methods from mobile sensing, signal processing and machine learning to gain insight into the dynamic processes underlying the emergence of disturbances in child mental health. We have engineered a wearable sensing platform that captures speech, motion, and physiological signals of infants and young children in their natural environments, and we are applying data-driven machine-learning approaches and dynamic statistical modeling techniques to large-scale, naturalistic, and longitudinal data sets to characterize dynamic child-parent transactions and children’s developing stress regulatory capacities and to ultimately capture reliable biomarkers of child mental health disturbance.

Postdoctoral position in Mobile Sensing and Child Mental Health
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science & Technology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

We seek outstanding candidates for a postdoctoral scholar position that combines multimodal sensing and signal processing, dynamic systems modeling, and child mental health. The ideal candidate would have expertise in one or more of the following domains related to wearable sensors:
• signal processing of audio, motion or physiological data
• statistical modeling of multivariate time series data
• mobile health interventions including wearable sensors
• activity recognition
• machine learning
• digital phenotyping

In addition to joining a highly interdisciplinary team and making contributions to high impact research on mobile sensing and child mental health, this position provides strong opportunities for professional development and mentorship by faculty team leaders, including Drs. Mark Hasegawa-Johnson, Romit Roy Choudhury, and Nancy McElwain. In collaboration with the larger team, the postdoctoral scholar will play a central role in preparing conference papers and manuscripts for publication, contributing to the preparation of future grant proposals, and assisting with further development of our mobile sensing platform for use with infants and young children.

Applicants should have a doctoral degree in computer engineering, computer science, or a field related to data analytics of wearable sensors, as well as excellent skills in programming, communication, and writing. Appointment is for at least two years, contingent on first-year performance. The position start date is negotiable.

Please send a cover letter and CV to Drs. Mark Hasegawa-Johnson (jhasegaw@illinois.edu) and Nancy McElwain (mcelwn@illinois.edu). Applications will be considered until the position is filled, with priority given to applications submitted by November 15th.