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Vacancy ID: PDS004698

Position Summary/Description:

Description of Site

The UNC School of Education at houses a world-class collaborative research faculty, numerous post-doctoral fellows and research scientists; and strong school partnership and outreach networks through alumni, and three regional school consortia (20 school districts). The School is a leader in integrating behavioral health considerations into K-12 public school training, practice, and research, aiming to solve pressing problems, through innovation, and by asking and answering tough questions, towards maximizing the potential of every learner. The UNC Department of Psychiatry has over 150 faculty members who are among the nation’s leaders in exploring the mechanisms that will ultimately explain human behavior and mental illness. The department is a collaborative, multidisciplinary team with faculty members from a variety of backgrounds including psychiatry, psychology, epidemiology, education, obstetrics and gynecology, health services delivery, social work, nursing, genetics, and nutrition.

Fellowship Aims

1. To provide the fellow with research training and experience in preparation for a research career in adolescent mental health interventions.

2. To provide the fellow with broad post-doctoral training in the area of research and clinical practice addressing school and clinical-based suicide prevention and intervention, assessment of suicidal thoughts and behaviors with a high-risk population, and interdisciplinary treatment for child/adolescent mental health disorders.

3. To provide the fellow with a strong working knowledge of research involving technology (including virtual reality) and commercialization.

Fellowship Timeline

The duration of the fellowship is 1 year with possibility to extend to a second-year contingent upon satisfactory progress.

Research Activity Plan

Research will involve several ongoing projects, with examples including:

+ Co-Designing a Virtual Reality Intervention to Enhance Skill Development with Adolescents Hospitalized for Suicide-Related Crises. Funded by an MQ Fellows Award (MQF22\16; PI Marraccini), this project is co-designing aspects of virtual reality experience with teens identifying as ethnic-racial minoritized and/or LGBTQ+ with lived suicide-related experience and pilot testing a virtual reality intervention with adolescents hospitalized for suicide-related crises.

+ Exploring Mental Health and Downstream Outcomes for Black Boys. Funded by Walton Family Foundation (PI: Lindsay), this project explores the intersection of school-related discipline, mental health and suicide-related outcomes among Black youth.

+ Participatory Social Network Analysis to Examine Social Connections and Identify Peer Leaders to Prevent Suicide in School-Aged Children. Funded by Humana Foundation (PI: Lanier), this project explores implementation strategies for an evidence-based upstream suicide prevention program in schools.

The postdoctoral fellow will work with the supervisors to oversee implementation of several investigations occurring in hospital and school settings. This will involve overseeing research assistant recruitment and follow-up procedures and conducting clinical interviews, as well as intervention delivery.

In addition to experiences included in coordination of the primary research project, the experience will consist of promoting development of the fellow’s independent program of research (subsumed under grant writing and manuscript preparation described below). The nature of this independent research program will be collaboratively determined by the fellow and supervisor(s) and will involve the production of a traditional scientific product (e.g., manuscript, presentation at a national professional meeting, grant application, instrument development); the independent program of research may involve new directions taken using resources (i.e., data, research population, etc) provided by the mentorship team and/or may involve continued development of the trainee’s prior work (i.e., publication of dissertation).

The fellow will be exposed to various aspects of research via participation in the following supportive research activities:

+ Study coordination: The fellow will collaborate with the PI/Co-I (Dr. Marraccini) to coordinate several investigations.

+ Clinical interviewing and intervention delivery: Research time will also involve administering clinical interviews and/or delivering exploratory interventions, which may also count toward clinical assessment hours toward licensure. Supervision will be provided by Dr. Marraccini.

The fellow will be provided specific opportunities to develop an independent program of research:

+ Entrepreneurship Training: The fellow will participate in the Venture Catalyst Program provided by Innovate Carolina’s KickStart Venture Services. This opportunity will provide them with research and commercialization training through experiential learning, as the goal of the program is to complete a business development focused Scope of Work ( SOW ) in collaboration with Dr. Marraccini under the guidance of an entrepreneurial mentor. Oversight of performance in the program will be provided by Dr. Marraccini and KickStart Venture Services, with a focus on considering commercialization at the onset of research.

+ Grant writing: The fellow will be encouraged to develop a grant idea and submit a grant proposal by the end of a two-year fellowship term.

+ Manuscript preparation and submission: The fellow will be encouraged to collaborate on and independently pursue manuscript preparation and poster submissions at national conferences. Individually tailored goals will be established in this area.

Although the focus of this position is towards development in research, the fellowship will involve activities supporting eligibility for psychology licensure that includes clinical rotations and clinical interviewing and intervention delivery described previously that is part of research activities with Dr. Marraccini. Clinical rotations will be selected to enhance research goals and occur at Department of Psychiatry CAP Division where the fellow will provide support and services in the Child and Adolescent Inpatient Psychiatry Units under the supervision of Drs. Meyer and Janos.

Supervision and Evaluation

Supervision will be provided in the form of weekly individual supervision (one hour each, with Dr. Marraccini primary research supervisor and Drs. Meyer and Janos providing clinical supervision as described above).

Every 6 months for the duration of the fellowship, the fellow and the supervisors will provide formal evaluations, and evaluations of the program relative to the goals and learning objectives of the fellowship.

Education and Experience:

+ Suicide prevention and intervention experience

+ School-based experiences

+ Interest in technology and commercialization