PhD recruitment
4-year funded junior research fellow (PhD student) position at the Institute of Psychology, University of Tartu, Estonia
A 4-year junior research fellow (PhD student) position is open at the Institute of Psychology, University of Tartu, Estonia. The position is funded by the Estonian Research Council project “Native Language Experience and the Brain’s Perception and Learning of a Foreign Language” (2024–2028) awarded to Dr. Siqi Lyu. The project investigates how the tonal component in Estonian, which is of secondary status in the Estonian phonetic system, and the Chinese tone, a dominant cue to discriminate word meanings in Chinese, affect the respective native speaker’s perception and learning of a foreign language differently. The successful candidate will be co-supervised by Dr. Siqi Lyu (Institute of Psychology), Dr. Pärtel Lippus (Institute of General and Estonian Linguistics), and Dr. Kairi Kreegipuu (Institute of Psychology).
The successful candidate will enter a 4-year fixed-term employment contract with the University of Tartu as a junior research fellow starting February 2025 (or soon after that). The tasks of this position are to design and conduct project-related experiments, analyze the data, and write and publish the results. There is a chance of being involved in teaching or co-supervising BA or MA student(s) if the candidate wants to gain relevant experience.
Gross salary: starting from 1900 EUR/month
Eligibility:
- A master’s degree in linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, or a relevant field
- Experience with designing or conducting psychological/psycholinguistic experiments
- Experience with using programming languages (e.g., R or Matlab)
- Highly motivated
- Good English writing skills
Preference will be given to applicants with the following qualifications:
- Experience with the writing or publishing of peer-reviewed journal articles
- Experience with tonal language perception experiments
NB! The project does not approach language learning from a pedagogical perspective.
Evaluation process:
- (1) Please send your CV and a short motivation letter to Dr. Siqi Lyu (siqi.lyu@ut.ee) by November 21, 2024. Eligible candidates will be invited for a one-on-one interview with Dr. Siqi Lyu on a rolling basis.
- (2) Those who pass the first stage will be invited to submit a doctoral thesis project* to the university’s application system and participate in an interview with the institute’s committee. The university’s application system will be open until November 30, 2024. The institute’s interview will take place in December 2024.
* The eligible candidates will receive further instructions from Dr. Siqi Lyu regarding the doctoral thesis project based on their first-round interviews.
Useful links
Open calls in doctoral studies at the University of Tartu: https://ut.ee/en/content/phd-open-calls
English language requirement for doctoral applicants at the University of Tartu: https://ut.ee/en/sisu/phd-language-requirements
