French-Australian PhD position in auditory-motor entrainment

The MARCS Institute (University of Western Sydney, Australia) and EuroMov (University of Montpellier, France) are seeking a cotutelle PhD student. The PhD student will complete a doctoral degree program jointly at the two universities, with a double-badged doctoral degree being awarded if the candidate passes the examination process at both institutions.

The PhD student will work in a collaborative research project with Dr Manuel Varlet and Associate Professor Peter Keller from the MARCS Institute, and Professors Benoît Bardy and Simone Dalla Bella from EuroMov. The topic of the research project will be on understanding fundamental principles underlying spontaneous auditory-motor entrainment. Jointly supervised by Dr Varlet and Professor Bardy, the student will investigate the behavioural and neural processes that underpin entrainment of human movements to external or environmental auditory rhythms (such as music or the sound of other people’s steps). More specifically, the project will aim at understanding how biological and/or musical features of external rhythms can facilitate the occurrence and stability of auditory-motor entrainment.

The candidate should have experience in designing experiments, collecting and analysing human data using Matlab or similar software. The candidate should have good communication skills in English. French language is a plus but is not a requirement.

The laureate junior scientist will spend half of her or his time (18 months) at EuroMov in France and the other half at the MARCS Institute in Australia. S/he will receive a monthly stipend according to French and Australian standards.

Applications should be sent by email to Dr Manuel Varlet (m.varlet@xxxxxxxxxx) and Professor Benoît Bardy (benoit.bardy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) and should include a CV, a cover letter describing relevant research skills and interests, and the names of two references.

Applications should be sent preferably before August 15th, 2015, but later applications will be considered until the position is filled.

Please feel free to contact Dr Manuel Varlet (m.varlet@xxxxxxxxxx) and Professor Benoît Bardy (benoit.bardy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) for further information.