PhD Position on Sleep, Stress and Arousal in Humans

ETH Zurich seeks a PhD candidate for a position focused on sleep, stress, and arousal in humans, combining physiology, mobile health methods, and computational data analysis. The role involves designing studies, collecting multimodal physiological data, and developing reproducible analysis pipelines.

This position centers on investigating the links between sleep, stress, arousal, and autonomic physiology through human studies conducted in both lab and real-world environments. It emphasizes building robust research pipelines for mobile and decentralized phenotyping, integrating data collection, biosignal processing, quality control, and computational analysis.

Responsibilities

• Plan and carry out laboratory and real-world studies on sleep, stress, and arousal in human participants
• Collect and manage multimodal physiological data during wake and sleep, including pupillometry, EEG, ECG, respiration, photoplethysmography, actigraphy, wearable sensor data, and smartphone-based assessments
• Manage decentralized and home-based study workflows, including participant guidance, device logistics, remote monitoring, troubleshooting, documentation, and data quality assurance
• Create and maintain reproducible data analysis pipelines covering preprocessing, synchronization, artifact removal, feature extraction, visualization, and reporting
• Use statistical modeling, signal processing, and machine learning to identify phenotypes related to sleep, stress, arousal, and recovery
• Interpret complex physiological data in the context of arousal regulation, autonomic control, sleep physiology, and health outcomes
• Collaborate with researchers, engineers, clinicians, students, and external partners to align experimental design, data infrastructure, and scientific analysis
• Share research results through scientific publications, conference presentations, and contributions to translational research projects

Requirements

• Ability to manage data workflows, collaborate with technical teams, build research-oriented pipelines, and take scientific responsibility for physiological data and its interpretation

About the company

The Neural Control of Movement Lab at ETH Zurich investigates how the brain controls behavior and develops non-invasive tools to measure and influence brain function during wake and sleep. The Department of Health Sciences and Technology fosters interdisciplinary research at the intersection of human biology, technology, and clinical applications, uniting experts in neuroscience, biomedical engineering, movement science, nutrition, physiology, and medicine.

• Interdisciplinary research environment combining neuroscience, biomedical engineering, movement science, nutrition, physiology, and medicine
• Focus on non-invasive brain interfaces for measuring and modulating brain function during wake and sleep
• Collaborative setting supporting translational research at the interface of human biology and technology