The Goldin-Meadow Laboratory in the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago is seeking a postdoctoral researcher beginning summer or fall 2020 (start date is flexible; but summer is preferred). The postdoctoral researcher will join a team investigating children’s development of language and reasoning from infancy through adolescence. The Chicago Language Development Project (LDP) is a longitudinal study of language learning and parent-child interaction following 60 typically developing children from infancy through high school. Data collected includes video of parent-child interaction in the home to capture spontaneous, everyday early language environments in the pre-school period and follow-up data on academic progress. A database of over 1 million transcribed utterances and associated language and gesture coding combined with additional measures of math and academic language provide a unique resource for longitudinal analyses.
The postdoctoral researcher will participate in all aspects of research management, development, and implementation. He/she will oversee design of follow-up surveys of longitudinal research participants, participate in the design of the database and research products that are shared with the broader research community, and complete analyses of longitudinal data. These analyses could include, for example, looking at the stability of linguistic, interactional, or other characteristics over age, investigating the predictive value of early behaviors on later linguistic and cognitive development or transition to postsecondary schooling and workforce entry.
A doctoral degree is required in psychology, linguistics, cognitive science, or a related field. The ideal candidate will have a background in corpus research and longitudinal analysis, and adequate computation skills (SQL, Python and/or R) with the ability to expand his/her knowledge through this project.
Interested candidates should submit a CV, a cover letter describing their research interests and career goals, and the names and contact information for two references who can be contacted for letters of recommendation.
Please email these materials to:
Susan Goldin-Meadow (sgsg@uchicago.edu) and Kristi Schonwald (kschonwa@uchicago.edu).
The University of Chicago is an Affirmative Action / Equal Opportunity / Disabled / Veterans Employer. Individuals requiring accommodation call 773-834-7573.