As a post-baccalaureate student

We are looking for one (1) Technical Associate I (Lab Manager) to begin in Summer 2025, working under the primary mentorship of Professor Rebecca Saxe. The associate will be joining the department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and the McGovern Institute for Brain research. Link to apply is: https://tinyurl.com/saxe2025. We encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds to apply and would appreciate it if you could share our job postings with anyone in your network who may be looking for post-bac research jobs in social cognition, developmental cognitive psychology, and/or cognitive neuroscience!

Job Description

The Lab Manager position is made up of three main components.

1. Lab operations: organizing and planning lab events and meetings, managing lab finances and institutional review board applications, acting as the lab liaison to the department and building administration, maintaining research databases, interfacing with MIT’s supercomputing cluster for data storage, and updating the lab website.
2. Research assistance: participant recruitment, data collection, preregistration, and analysis plans.
3. Professional development: activities that would aid in professional growth, including but not limited to taking/auditing courses, attending symposia and conferences, or other types of training programs supported by MIT.

This position is suitable for recent graduates who are looking for more research experience before graduate school. Across the technical and managerial responsibilities, there will be ample opportunities to explore your research interests, contribute to scientific projects, and/or to pursue a personal project under the PI’s supervision. Some examples of recent projects of interest can be found at https://saxelab.mit.edu/research/.

The position will be a 1-year fixed term position, with possibility for renewal. The base salary is $50,000/year. Applicants with at least two years of full-time research experience, including a maximum of up to one year of undergraduate experience, or a Master’s degree, are eligible for higher salaries.

The applicant should be eligible to work in the US as a full-time employee. MIT does not sponsor visas for this role, but is an E-Verified employer of Optional Practical Training (OPT).

Applicant Qualifications

Required:

• Bachelor’s degree in cognitive science, neuroscience, and psychology or a related field.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• Be able to create and maintain organizational systems, and work in a collaborative environment.
• Basic experience with programming concepts in any language, e.g. Python.
• Be intrinsically motivated to support rigorous and open science and problem solve.

Ideal:

• Previous experience in a research lab.
• Experience in data analysis, data sharing, information systems and/or software development.
• Experience with Unix-like systems and/or computing clusters.
• Familiarity with R and MATLAB.

• Familiarity with the concepts and processes of Open Science.

Application Instructions

Applicants should submit a cover letter describing their research interests, skills and how they fit with this position, a CV, contacts for 2-3 letters of reference (letters will be requested for finalists, and do not need to be submitted until later). We will begin to evaluate applications on March 24, 2025.

The core values of the Saxelab include (i) we commit to improving transparency, accessibility, and reliability of scientific research, (ii) we recognize and affirm the diversity of our community, and (iii) we commit to take action to increase inclusion, equity, belonging, and justice.

Please send all inquiries about this position to: Camille Osumah, cosumah@mit.edu with SAXELAB MANAGER POSITION in the subject line.

We also accept post-bac students (a two year program prior to PhD applications) through the Post-baccalaureate Research Scholars Program in Brain and Cognitive Sciences. This is a fully-funded, non-degree two-year program for underrepresented students who are interested in neuroscience and cognitive science. If you are interested in working at the Saxe Lab during this program, please reach out to our lab manager for more information.

As a high school student

Unfortunately, the Saxe Lab does not accept volunteers or research internships for high school students. If you’d like to work on research projects at MIT, we encourage you to look opportunities through Leah Knox Scholars program in biology, the Research Science Institute, and PRIMES. Saxe Lab is not affiliated with any of these programs. You can also learn about programs at MIT through tracking outreach.mit.edu.

As a non-MIT undergraduate student

We don’t have internship positions. If there is an institutional or external program available, we will list it here. We are open to hosting sophomore and junior college students through MSRP. If you applied to MSRP and would like to work with us, please write to our lab manager through email or the contact form below to let us know that you applied and detail your interests in related projects.

As an MIT UROP

We sometimes list available UROPs at the UROP office, but students can also contact our lab manager to ask if there is a position available. Please include a description of your interests and goals when writing to us.

Typically we ask UROPs to work for credit for their first semester in the lab, while they are mostly being trained. Many of our long-term UROPs are funded by either the UROP office or our grants. UROPs who stay in the lab more than two semesters often get to play significant roles in research projects, and some have earned authorship on published papers.

As a graduate student

1. Potential graduate students should apply through the BCS graduate program application.

2. Professor Saxe is open to taking graduate students for Fall 2025 entry.

3. Applicants do not need to email Professor Saxe directly before applying to the BCS program. Also, Professor Saxe is not available to meet one-on-one with applicants, outside of the BCS interview process. However, people who are specifically interested in Saxe Lab should say so (and why) in their application essays.

4. Consider this list of questions when considering joining.

5. Graduate students who have already been admitted to the BCS PhD program can inquire with Professor Saxe about the availability of rotation projects, by emailing her directly.

6. Many graduate students are co-mentored by Professor Saxe and another BCS PI. Students interested in this arrangement should email Professor Saxe about it.

Some things to note before applying:

• You are welcome to let Professor Saxe know that you plan to apply, but she does not meet with potential applicants before the written applications are evaluated.
• To get a sense of Professor Saxe’s current research interests, please view our research page.

As postdoctoral researcher

1. Potential post-docs can write directly to Professor Saxe, describing their training and interests.

2. We are currently not recruiting new post-docs.

3. Consider this list of questions when considering joining.