Project title:
At the crossroad of youth mental health: genomic and exposomic determinants of mental health and resilience trajectories

Background:
Adolescence and young adulthood represent a critical period that forecasts the level of mental wellbeing over lifetime. There is an urgent need to better understand mental health trajectories, detect early markers of trajectories towards mental ill-health, and intervene early in youth at-risk for transitioning into mental illness.

We offer an exciting versatile project working within a large European Horizon project: “Gene Environment interactions in Mental health trajectorieS of Youth” (Youth-GEMs). The Youth-GEMs is a large international project with partners across European Union countries, Australia, and the UK and provides various opportunities to collaborate with researchers from different research backgrounds. In this project, the successful candidate will investigate how different genetic and environmental factors interact to drive or prevent the onset of mental ill-health in large-scale longitudinal children and adolescent populations.

Tasks and responsibilities

• Literature study on youth mental health:
• Epidemiological analyses of social, environmental, genetic determinants of mental health outcomes in large birth and youth cohorts;
• Contribute to data management, cleaning, quality checking, and harmonization within the Youth-GEMs;
• Presentation of findings in a thesis, scientific publications, and at (inter)national conferences;
• Teaching and supervision of Master students;
• Work in an interdisciplinary team of international researchers;
• Collaborate with consortium partners with excellent opportunities to develop academic networks.

For this project, epidemiological and statistical genetics methods will be used. Therefore, we are looking for a candidate with an M.Sc. with a research background in genetics, data science, neuroscience, epidemiology, or related fields and an affinity to psychology/psychiatry research. A good command (oral and written) of English is required.

The candidate should have a keen interest in learning statistical approaches and epidemiological methods for genomic and exposomic analyses of multiple large youth cohorts. The candidate should be highly motivated, self-driven, team-oriented, with good communications skills and an ability to work both independently and collaboratively.

Excellent statistical and programming skills (such as R (PLINK, PRSice) and Python) are important for successful completion of this project. Therefore, candidates with previous experience of programming in one or more languages are preferred.

Our research group is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive academic community and encourages applications from underrepresented minorities, women, and persons with disabilities.

Fixed-term contract: 4 years (1+3).

The employment takes place for 1.0 FTE at the division of Mental Health, MHeNs, Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology at Maastricht University.

The full-time position is offered for four years (1+3), with a yearly evaluation.

The gross monthly salary is € 2,541 gross per month in the first year up to € 3,247 gross per month in the fourth year, conform the CAO Phd-candidate salary scale. On top of this, there is an 8% holiday and an 8.3% year-end allowance.

In addition to good primary employment conditions, UM also offers an attractive package of secondary employment conditions.

The terms of employment of Maastricht University are set out in the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities (CAO). Furthermore, local UM provisions also apply. For more information look at the website www.maastrichtuniversity.nl > About UM > Working at UM.

Maastricht University

Maastricht University is renowned for its unique, innovative, problem-based learning system, which is characterized by a small-scale and student-oriented approach. Research at UM is characterized by a multidisciplinary and thematic approach, and is concentrated in research institutes and schools. Maastricht University has around 22,000 students and about 5,000 employees. Reflecting the university's strong international profile, a fair amount of both students and staff are from abroad. The university hosts 6 faculties: Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Faculty of Law, School of Business and Economics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience. 
For more information, visit www.maastrichtuniversity.nl.