Postdoctoral Fellow, Cognitive Assessment and Psychometrics

McGill University; Montreal; On-site; CAD 54,000 - 66,000; Full time

Job summary

McGill University in Montreal seeks a Postdoctoral Fellow in Cognitive Assessment and Psychometrics to adapt cognitive tasks for a gamified research platform. The role focuses on reliable measures of working memory, inhibition, and flexibility, with collaboration across software and ML teams.

The candidate will design pilot studies, analyze multi-modal data, and contribute to reproducible research pipelines, under a professor's supervision.

Qualifications

• PhD in cognitive sciences with strong psychometric training.
• Experience designing cognitive experiments and evaluating measurement reliability.
• Demonstrated skills in robust statistical analysis and reproducible workflows.

Responsibilities

• Adapt cognitive tasks for the game, defining constructs and scoring.
• Collaborate with software engineers to specify implementations and timing.
• Run pilot studies with baseline multi-modal data from large cohorts.
• Assess measurement comparability across devices, gameplay, and culture.
• Develop pipelines to test measurement quality, reliability, and validity.
• Partner with ML to define interpretable features for multimodal models.

Skills

Psychometrics

Experimental design

Reliability analysis

Statistical analysis

Reproducible research

Python

IRT

Latent variable models

Adaptive testing

Gamified assessments

Education

PhD in cognitive neuroscience

Job description

Position Summary:

The Citadel of the Mind Project:

The Citadel of the Mind is an ambitious research initiative supported by a Schmidt Sciences Polymath Award. The project aims to replace traditional psychiatric diagnostic "buckets" with a continuous, high-dimensional AI foundation model of human neurotypes. To achieve the massive global scale required, data collection will be driven by a mobile and browser-based puzzle video game, which will serve as a dual data engine, capturing quantitative metrics through cognitive tests and qualitative data through conversational AI interactions with non-playable characters (NPCs).

Postdoctoral Fellow, Cognitive Assessment and Psychometrics

Role Overview

Working with Professor Blake Richards, the postdoctoral fellow will adapt standard cognitive assessments into engaging mechanics within a research-focused video game. The goal is to capture reliable, interpretable measures of working memory, response inhibition, cognitive flexibility, time perception, and other cognitive metrics.

Responsibilities

• Adapt established cognitive tasks for the game, specifying intended constructs, scoring methods, and interpretation limits.
• Collaborate with a software engineer to translate task designs into implementation specifications, including stimuli, response timing, and calibration.
• Design and execute pilot studies, initially collecting baseline multi-modal data across a cohort of over 1,000 participants.
• Evaluate how device variations, gameplay experience, and cultural context affect measurement comparability and performance.
• Develop reproducible analysis pipelines to test measurement quality, reliability, and validity.
• Partner with the machine learning team to define interpretable features and target evaluations for multimodal models.

Qualifications

• PhD in cognitive neuroscience, psychology, or a closely related discipline.
• Demonstrated expertise in psychometrics, experimental design, and evaluating measurement reliability.
• Proficiency in statistical analysis and reproducible research.
• Experience with coding in Python.
• Preferred: Experience with latent variable models, item response theory (IRT), adaptive testing, or gamified assessments.

This position is covered by the AMURE collective agreement: https://www.mcgill.ca/hr/employee-relations/assocs-unions

Before applying, please note that to work at McGill University, you must be both authorized to work in Canada and willing to work in the province of Quebec at the campus where the position is based / located.

McGill University is an English-language university where most teaching and research activities are conducted in the English language, thereby requiring English communication both verbally and in writing.

Annual Salary: $60,000.00

Hours per Week: 35 (Full time)

Location: Montreal Neuro.

Supervisor: Associate Professor

Position Start Date: 2027-01-01

Position End Date: 2027-12-31

Deadline to Apply: 2026-11-13

McGill University hires on the basis of merit and is strongly committed to equity and diversity within its community. We welcome applications from racialized persons/visible minorities, women, Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, ethnic minorities, and persons of minority sexual orientations and gender identities, as well as from all qualified candidates with the skills and knowledge to productively engage with diverse communities. McGill implements an employment equity program and encourages members of designated groups to self-identify. Persons with disabilities who anticipate needing accommodations for any part of the application process may contact, in confidence, [e-mail].