The Neural Control of Movement Lab at ETH Zurich, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, invites exceptional candidates to apply for a PhD position focused on the physiological links between sleep, stress, arousal and health in humans. The project combines mechanistic laboratory experiments with real-world, home-based and decentralized phenotyping, using multimodal physiological recordings, mobile health technologies and computational analysis pipelines. The PhD student will contribute to a translational research program that aims to understand how daily stress and arousal states shape sleep physiology, recovery and health-relevant outcomes in real life.
The Department of Health Sciences and Technology at ETH Zurich unites researchers across neuroscience, biomedical engineering, movement science, nutrition, physiology and medicine, offering an interdisciplinary environment for research at the interface of human biology, technology and clinical translation.
Tasks
- Design and conduct mechanistic laboratory studies and real-world sleep, stress and arousal studies in human participants
- Acquire and manage multimodal physiological data during wake and sleep, such as pupillometry, EEG, ECG, respiration, photoplethysmography, actigraphy, wearable sensor data, smartphone-based assessments and questionnaires
- Coordinate decentralized and home-based study workflows, including participant instructions, device logistics, remote monitoring, troubleshooting, documentation and data quality control
- Develop and maintain reproducible analysis pipelines for physiological and behavioral data, including preprocessing, synchronization, artifact handling, feature extraction, visualization and reporting
- Apply statistical modelling, signal processing and machine learning approaches to identify phenotypes of sleep, stress, arousal and recovery
- Interpret complex physiological data in relation to mechanisms of arousal regulation, autonomic control, sleep physiology and health-relevant outcomes
- Work closely with researchers, engineers, clinicians, students and external collaborators to connect experimental design, data infrastructure and scientific analysis
- Disseminate findings through scientific publications, conference presentations and contributions to larger translational research initiatives
Requirements
- A Master's degree (or near completion) in biomedical engineering, medical engineering, medical informatics, computational neuroscience, data science, or a closely related field, with demonstrated quantitative and programming skills
- Strong programming skills in Python, MATLAB, R, or comparable languages, with experience writing clean, well-documented, and reproducible analysis code
- Strong skills in data analysis, statistics, signal processing, computational modelling, machine learning or artificial intelligence for complex physiological or behavioral data
- Experience with physiological data acquisition and analysis, ideally including sleep EEG, ECG, respiration, photoplethysmography, actigraphy, wearable sensors or other multimodal biosignal time series
- A solid understanding of human physiology and strong motivation to work on sleep, stress, arousal, autonomic regulation, recovery and health-relevant phenotyping
- Experience designing or conducting human research studies, including experimental protocols, participant-facing work, ethics-aware procedures, documentation and quality control
- Ability to build and manage structured research pipelines, including data ingestion, preprocessing, synchronization, artifact handling, feature extraction, validation, visualization and reporting
- Capacity to coordinate real-world, home-based or decentralized studies with high reliability, including device workflows, participant instructions, troubleshooting and data integrity checks
- A highly structured, detail-oriented and reliable working style, with excellent documentation habits, careful follow-through and respect for sensitive human research data
- Scientific curiosity, intellectual independence, strong work ethic, problem-solving ability and enthusiasm for interdisciplinary research at the interface of physiology, technology and health
- Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate with researchers, engineers, clinicians, students, study staff, technical partners and human participants
- Fluency in English
- German language skills are an advantage, especially for participant-facing work
Benefits
- A fully funded PhD position for approximately four years in an excellent scientific and social environment at a world-leading university
- The project combines human experimental work, real-world physiological data collection, computational analysis and translational research
- An outstanding opportunity to develop a distinctive scientific profile at the interface of sleep physiology, stress and arousal science, mobile health and digital phenotyping
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Über uns
Das Team
The Neural Control of Movement Lab focuses on understanding how the brain controls behavior and on developing non-invasive interfaces to measure and modulate brain function during wake and sleep. Researchers, engineers, clinicians, students and external collaborators work together within an interdisciplinary environment at the Department of Health Sciences and Technology.