Join the Lab
We receive so many emails from prospective trainees that it is no longer possible to reply to them all. Please accept our apologies if you do not get a response, but hopefully all questions you may have are answered below.
PhD students
The only route to doing a PhD with us is through one of these three externally managed schemes:
- London Interdisciplinary Doctoral Programme (LIDo)
- UCL-Birkbeck MRC DTP
- UCL-NIMH Joint Doctoral Training Program in Neuroscience (US citizens and permanent residents)
There is no need to contact us before applying to the LIDo or MRC programmes. If you get onto them, you can get in touch to do rotations in the lab. If you are a US citizen interested in the NIMH programme, please get in touch before applying, as we would need to identify a suitable NIMH mentor. We do not take self-funded PhD students.
Postdoctoral researchers
All postdoctoral positions will be advertised on the UCL jobs page and jobs.ac.uk. We also occasionally support independent fellowship applications to be hosted by the lab, but these have become extremely competitive in recent years, so they should not be embarked on lightly. Please get in touch if you are interested in, for example, Wellcome Trust, MRC or NIHR schemes.
Research assistants
All RA positions will be advertised on the UCL jobs page and jobs.ac.uk. Unlike some institutions, we do not have discretionary funds for unadvertised positions.
Interns
We do not take unpaid interns, out of equality and equity concerns. The only way to do an internship is to obtain paid funding. Oliver set up the British Association for Psychopharmacology internship scheme for this purpose, and we are happy to support one candidate for this scheme a year. If you obtain another source of stipend for an internship (for example, via a scheme at your undergraduate university), we are happy to consider taking you. Please get in touch once you have identified such a funding source.
Master's and undergraduate projects
There is no need to contact us before getting onto a master's or undergraduate course. Once you are on a suitable programme, the process of applying for a research project will be explained. We have a competitive process for selecting trainees for projects in the lab, as we are unfortunately not able to support everyone who contacts us.