Project: Perceptual bias and the evolution of organism communication signals 4-year Research Associate position at the University of Sheffield: deadline 16 Nov 2025 https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPB994/research-associate-biodiversity-and-evolution Position overview: We have an exciting opportunity for a motivated and enthusiastic individual interested in biodiversity, evolution, neuroscience and/or machine learning to join the Leverhulme Trust funded research project 'Perceptual bias and the evolution of organismal communication signals' as a Research Associate. The post is for 4 years. The project will make use of recent advances in computational neuroscience, machine learning and image analysis to investigate questions linking animal visual signal diversity to biases in visual perception. You will lead the investigation of research questions probing these links and be responsible for important aspects of project execution including data collection, analysis and interpretation, and manuscript preparation. This is an excellent opportunity to work on a long-term project at the intersection of biological and computer science research domains. Applicants must hold a PhD (or equivalent experience) in a relevant subject area along with an interest in biodiversity, evolution, neuroscience and/or machine learning. A strong analytical and quantitative skillset and experience of programming languages (e.g. R, Python) are also essential. This post will be supervised by Dr Christopher Cooney (https://www.cooneylab.co.uk/) and will involve working closely with other project members including co-investigators Prof Gavin Thomas (Sheffield), Dr Julien Renoult (CNRS Montpellier), as well as PhD student and research technician. The research group is embedded within the world-class Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Research Cluster, part of the School of Biosciences at the University of Sheffield (https://sheffield.ac.uk/biosciences/research). The University of Sheffield builds teams of people from different heritages and lifestyles from across the world, whose talent and contributions complement each other to greatest effect. We believe diversity in all its forms delivers greater impact through research, teaching and student experience. To apply and for further details of the role, please follow the link above. Informal enquiries are welcome, please contact: c.cooney@sheffield.ac.uk. NERC Research Fellow School of Biosciences University of Sheffield www.cooneylab.co.uk Chris Cooney (to subscribe/unsubscribe the EvolDir send mail to golding@mcmaster.ca)