Postdoctoral Researcher Stress in Action

Vrije Universisteit; Amsterdam; On-site; EUR 41,000 - 57,000; Part time

Benefits offered by this job

Salary €3,706–€5,103 gross per month (

0.8–1.0 FTE contract

Holiday allowance and end-of-yearbonus

Job summary

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam invites applications for a research-focused role in the Stress in Action cohort enrichment study. You will develop data processing pipelines for multimodal data, contribute to governance SOPs, and support teaching and supervision of students.

The role advances an academic career with access to rich lab and ambulatory datasets. Strong candidates have a PhD in a related field, experience with large datasets, and programming skills in Python, R or MATLAB.

Qualifications

• PhD required in a relevant field (psychology, health sciences, neuroscience, biomedical sciences, epidemiology, bioinformatics, computer sciences, or related).
• Experience with writing research papers and with large-scale multimodal datasets.
• Knowledge of basic psychometric principles and related statistical methods.
• Strong programming skills in Python, R, MATLAB or similar.
• Fluent in English; Dutch language skills are a strong asset.

Responsibilities

• Develop and implement data processing pipelines for large multimodal datasets.
• Contribute to team management and SOP development for data governance and collection.
• Support teaching activities and supervise students in research projects.

Skills

Affinity for writing papers

Experience with large-scale multimodal

Statistical methodology knowledge

English writing and presentation

Communication and social skills

Supervision of students

Dutch language skills (asset)

Education

PhD in psychology/health sciences/neuroscience/biomedical sciences/epidemiology/bioinformatics/computer science

Tools

Python

R

MATLAB

Job description

Your function

You will be a key part of the project team that will run the Stress in Action cohort enrichment study that starts in 2026. The team will collect active and passive measures, including sensor data from smartphones, wearables, and ecological momentary assessment capturing the affective, cognitive, physiological, and behavioural components of the stress response in people’s natural environments. This work will generate unique large-scale datasets on daily life stress and its health impacts.

Your specific focus will be developing and implementing data processing pipelines for these large-scale multimodal datasets to enable scientific discovery. You will also contribute to team management and further develop standard operating procedures for data governance and data collection, covering topics such as study logistics, data privacy, and cross-cohort data linkage.

Advancing the careers of early-career researchers is one of the missions of the Stress in Action consortium, and this position offers you ample opportunity to engage in scientific endeavours that set you up for an academic career. From the outset, you will be able to run analyses and write papers leveraging the existing lab-based and ambulatory datasets from our Stress in Action wearable validation pipeline. Subsequently, you will be able to use the Stress in Action cohort enrichment study data, strengthening your research profile and building a strong base for future grant applications regarding the consortium’s mission of better understanding stress-related disease.

In terms of teaching, you will support standard departmental activities, including co-teaching the undergraduate course Stress & Health, as well as B-thesis and M-thesis student supervision.

Your profile

For this position you are expected to have:

• A PhD degree in the fields of psychology, health sciences, neuroscience, biomedical sciences, epidemiology, bioinformatics, computer sciences, or a related discipline (also candidates close to the thesis defence are encouraged to apply)
• Affinity and experience with writing research papers
• Experience and/or strong interest in working with large-scale, multimodal datasets
• Knowledge of basicpsychometric principles and related statistical methodology
• Good programming skills in Python, R, Matlab, or other tools
• English conversation, writing skills, and presentation skills
• Communication and social skills
• Interest in supervision of students
• Dutch language skills are a strong asset

As a university, we strive for equal opportunities for all, recognising that diversity takes many forms. We believe that diversity in all its complexity is invaluable for the quality of our teaching, research and service. We are always looking for talent with diverse backgrounds and experiences. This also means that we are committed to creating an inclusive community so that we can use diversity as an asset.

What do we offer?

A challenging position in a socially engaged organisation. At VU Amsterdam, you contribute to education, research and service for a better world. And that is valuable. So in return for your efforts, we offer you:

• a salary of minimum € 3.706,00 (Scale 10) and maximum€ 5103,00 (Scale 10) gross per month, on a full-time basis. This is based on UFO profile Researcher 4. The exact salary depends on your education and experience.
• a position for at least 0.8 FTE. Your employment contract will initially last 1 year.Afterwards, the possibility of expansion exists.

We also offer you attractive fringe benefits and regulations. Some examples:

• A full-time 38-hour working week comes with a holiday leave entitlement of 232 hours per year. If you choose to work 40 hours, you have 96 extra holiday leave hours on an annual basis. For part-timers, this is calculated pro rata.
• 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus
• contribution to commuting expenses
• optional model for designing a personalized benefits package
• solid pension scheme (ABP)

About us

Stress in Action project
In this project, more than 100 multidisciplinary scientists from eight Dutch academic institutes collaborate around the theme ‘stress in daily life’. Divided into three Research Themes and three Support Cores, the Stress in Action consortium will validate daily life stress assessments, examine which contextual factors contribute to the experience of daily life stress, and investigate how daily life stress leads to the development of both mental and cardiometabolic diseases. The project is funded through the Dutch Research Council under the Gravitation programme. More details can be foundhere.

Where will you be working?
At the Department of Biological Psychology of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, we conduct research and education on the causes of individual differences in health behaviours and disease outcomes. It is a department with a long tradition in stress research, where enthusiastic and ambitious academics work to generate knowledge and translate it into improvements in health and wellbeing. Our research on the role of genetic and environmental factors – including stress- belongs to the international top.

Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences
Developing knowledge for an active, healthy and meaningful life: that is our mission at the Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences at VU Amsterdam. We maintain a broad focus on the fields of behaviour and health. Our teaching and research programmes are devoted to current developments in society. From healthy aging to e-health, and from training top athletes to social media as a teaching tool. We combine three academic disciplines: psychology, movement sciences and education. A multidisciplinary approach allows us to arrive at a better understanding of human behaviour and movement. Our aims are to help people live healthier lives, learn better and function better.

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam stands for values-driven education and research. We are open-minded experts with the ability to think freely - a broader mind. Maintaining an entrepreneurial perspective and concentrating on diversity, significance and humanity, we work on sustainable solutions with social impact. By joining forces, across the boundaries of disciplines, we work towards a better world for people and planet. Together we create a safe and respectful working and study climate, and an inspiring environment for education and research. Learn more about our codes of conduct

We are located on one physical campus, in the heart of Amsterdam's Zuidas business district, with excellent location and accessibility. Over 6,150 staff work at the VU and over 31,000 students attend academic education.

Diversity
Diversity is the driving force of VU Amsterdam. VU wants to be accessible and receptive to diversity in disciplines, cultures, ideas, nationalities, beliefs, preferences and worldviews. We believe that trust, respect, interest and differences lead to new insights and innovation, to sharpness and clarity, to excellence and a broader understanding.

We stand for an inclusive community and believe that diversity and internationalisation contribute to the quality of education, research and our services.

Therefore, we are always searching for people whose backgrounds and experience contribute to the diversity of the VU community.