Join Our Lab!

We are dedicated to providing training experiences for those interested in a career in the behavioral sciences. Individuals may join our laboratory team in several different ways: Graduate Student, Volunteer Research Assistant, or Undergraduate Student.

 

Full-Stack Machine Learning Engineer / Data Scientist (Grade 57)

Job Summary

Lead analytic development across several ongoing clinical research initiatives and enriches research productivity and reliability; implement software solutions.  Ensure that modern standards of reproducible code are kept.

Position Description

A research lab studying suicide in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University is seeking to hire a Full-Stack Machine Learning Engineer (MLE) / Data Scientist (DS) to support the end-to-end management, analysis, and visualization of behavioral and clinical data streams. The full-stack MLE/DS will work on studies aimed at advancing the understanding, prediction, and treatment of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. The position involves working on scalable data pipelines, integrating multimodal data (e.g., data from smartphone-based surveys, passive smartphone/wearable monitors, social media platforms, electronic health records), and helping to deploy analytic tools that can generate actionable insights (e.g., visualizations, algorithms) in real-time. 

The MLE will join a dynamic, multi-site team working at the intersection of machine learning, digital phenotyping, pediatric mental health, and real-time clinical decision support on projects aimed at improving identification of, and intervention on, mental health problems (e.g., suicide) using rich data sources. The successful applicant will have strong programming skills and technical expertise in ML to execute tasks independently, advanced data management, analysis, and visualization skills. This role is ideal for someone who wants to work on mental health research with real-world implications. Responsibilities include:

  • Work with the research team to support the design, development, and implementation of ML models.
  • Support infrastructure for cleaning, processing, analyzing, and visualization of various data types (e.g., GPS data scraped from smartphones, accelerometer data from wearable devices, digital phenotyping data, etc.).
  • Support experiments to evaluate model performance, perform error analysis, and suggest and implement improvements.
  • Conduct higher-level analysis of data and supervise analyses performed by other members of the lab.
  • Integrate data across workflows (e.g., digital phenotyping, behavioral, and clinical data).
  • Help develop and support a secure, scalable dashboard or lightweight clinical app that synthesizes data and provides visualizations in real time.
  • Deploy modular, reusable visualization components and maintain version-controlled code repositories.
  • Work closely with university and Harvard teaching hospital-based IT teams to ensure interoperability, reliability, and clinical relevance.
  • Assist with preparation of grant applications, presentations, and publications.

Typical Core Duties:

  • Collaborate with researchers in the design, planning, and implementation of analyses that enrich research productivity and reliability
  • Build understanding of research activities through regular engagements
  • Provide feedback on scope of work and project plan and track progress of regular milestones
  • Build and maintain aspects of software code and custom data processing pipelines for complex environments
  • Apply firm understanding of specific technology to develop custom solutions to meet researchers’ needs
  • Work in a team of developers and researchers in collaboration with systems professionals
  • Provide regular communications to project leads with updates
  • Build internal code design and development guides for future contributors
  • Teach workshops for researchers on sustainable software and data management practices
  • Abide by and follow the Harvard University IT technical standards, policies and Code of Conduct

Basic Qualifications

Minimum of three years’ post-secondary education or relevant work experience

Additional Qualifications and Skills

  • 3-5+ years of hands-on experience with time-series data, sensor data, or biomedical/wearable data.
  • Proficiency in one or more programming languages (Python and/or JavaScript preferred), including libraries for ML (TensorFlow, PyTorch), data engineering (pandas, NumPy), and visualization (Plotly, Dash, Bokeh).
  • Experience deploying dashboards or apps (e.g., Dash, Streamlit, React, Flask, or similar)
  • Experience with real-time or streaming data pipelines.
  • Expert-level knowledge of statistical programming, particularly R (tidyverse, ggplot2) and R Markdown.
  • Strong understanding of ML approaches for classification, anomaly detection, and prediction using high-frequency data.
  • Experience with multilevel longitudinal data, missing data strategies, and clinical outcome modeling.
  • Experience with EHR data, REDCap, Qualtrics, or hospital-based informatics systems.

Additional Information

This is a temporary position for up to 90 days. If you are interested, please send your resume and a brief cover letter to yahn@fas.harvard.edu. All formal offers will be made by FAS Human Resources.

Pay Range: $40-$50/hr

 

Join us as a Postdoctoral Fellow

Professor Matthew Nock and the Nock Lab in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University invites applications for a Postdoctoral Fellow position in Clinical Psychology. The Postdoctoral Fellow will be involved in research initiatives focused on improving the translation of the advances made in the understanding, prediction, and prevention of youth suicide – with the goal of dramatically raising the standard of care for the acute/inpatient treatment of youth determined to be at risk for suicide. These initiatives will include a focus on implementing a new monitoring and intervention system aimed at enhancing treatment during the inpatient pathway of care.

Responsibilities:

1. Conduct research in clinical psychology.

2. Publish and present research findings in high-quality scientific journals and conferences.

3. Collaborate with faculty, researchers, and students on interdisciplinary research projects.

4. Contribute to the preparation of research proposals.

5. Participate in teaching and mentoring activities for undergraduate and graduate students.

This is a one-year term position with possibility of renewal dependent upon job performance and continued availability of funding.

The Department of Psychology sits within the Division of Social Science, which is strongly committed to creating and supporting a diverse workforce. Respect and fairness, kindness and collegiality, and trust and transparency are among the values we espouse and promote in our workplace culture. We work hard to ensure a healthy, inclusive, and positive environment where everyone does their best work in support of Harvard’s mission.

Apply Here

 

Join us as a Graduate Student

Graduate students join our laboratory via Harvard's Graduate Program in Psychology. Harvard now has a Clinical Psychology Program and we encourage people interested in a career as a clinical scientist to apply to this program. You can find out more information about our program on the Department of Psychology Website. Graduate students in our lab often participate in our ongoing research projects and are encouraged to develop and implement their own independent research projects within our laboratory. If you have specific questions about applying to Harvard's Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology and are interested in the work in our laboratory, please contact Dr. Matthew Nock.

Professor Nock is accepting PhD students for Fall 2026 admission.

Join us as a Research Assistant

Volunteer Research Assistant Opportunities

Additionally, we sometimes have Research Assistant opportunities available for those with an interest in clinical research who are able to volunteer at least eight hours per week for a period of at least four months. RA positions involve working closely with faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and other RAs to assist with subject recruitment; helping to run the actual laboratory studies; coding, entering, and analyzing data; summarizing the current literature; proofreading and editing; and organizing/digitizing files. 

Please note that the volunteer research assistant application has been closed as of May 2nd, 2026. A review of applications has been completed, and we will be contacting applicants soon. The application will be reopened as needed in the future. 

Join us as an Undergraduate in Psych 2461r

This course is designed to give undergraduate students hands-on experience conducting research in clinical psychology.  Through attending weekly lab meetings and working on one of several research teams, students learn how research ideas are generated and specific hypotheses formed, research studies are designed to test these hypotheses, various research methods are used depending on the question addressed, data are collected and analyzed, and results are presented at meetings and in scientific publications.  This course is expected to be especially useful for students planning on pursuing a career in clinical psychology and research, but the skills such as critical thinking, research design, statistical analyses, and science writing will be useful more generally.

All students interested in Psych 2461r are required to submit an online APPLICATION to obtain permission before enrolling in the course.