job openings for two PhD positions

[Daniel Schad]

Dear administrators,

I have job openings for two PhD positions in Potsdam, Germany (see attached).

Would it be possible to send these via the mailing list?

Thank you and best wishes,

Daniel Schad

PhD position (m/f/d) – Reinforcement learning during Pavlovian conditioning. We are looking for an academic staff member with focus on research on reinforcement learning during Pavlovian conditioning (75% position for 3.5 years, equivalent E13 TV-L) to support our team starting in January 2026 or later. The candidate will work on a project aimed at investigating individual differences in Pavlovian conditioning, namely human "sign/goal tracking" (Schad et al., 2020, Nature Human Behavior), including computational model-free and model-based Pavlovian and instrumental reinforcement learning modelling. The activity will take place under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Daniel Schad (Chair of Quantitative Methods at the HMU in Potsdam) and in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Ralf Engbert (Chair of Cognitive and Biological Psychology, University of Potsdam). It will be situated in a collaborative research center (CRC 1294; www.sfb1294.de) on “Data assimilation” at the University of Potsdam. Application deadline: November 30, 2025 (applications will be considered until the position is filled). For more details see: https://danielschad.github.io/6-Jobs.html

PhD position (m/f/d) – Mindless reading: EEG & large language models. We are looking for an academic staff member with focus on research on mindless reading including EEG & large language models (65% position for 3.5 years, equivalent E13 TV-L) to support our team starting in January 2026 or later. The candidate will work on a project aimed at investigating mindless reading via EEG and large language models, namely studying the “levels of inattention hypothesis” that mindless reading is graded (Schad et al., 2012, Cognition; Schad et al., 2024, JEP:LMC), using EEG recordings during reading, as well as computational modeling using state-of-the-art large language models. The activity will take place under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Daniel Schad (Chair of Quantitative Methods at the HMU in Potsdam) and Prof. Dr. Milena Rabovsky (Chair of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Potsdam). It will be situated in collaborative research center CRC 1287 (www.sfb1287.uni-potsdam.de/en) on “Limits of variability in language” at the University of Potsdam. Application deadline: November 30, 2025 (applications will be considered until the position is filled). For more details see: https://danielschad.github.io/6-Jobs.html