PhD Position - READEXP

• To be eligible for admission to a PhD programme, candidates must have completed at least 300 ECTS credits through their official university studies, including at least 60 ECTS credits at master's level.
• Carry out research under supervision
• Have the ambition to develop knowledge of research methodologies and discipline
• Have demonstrated a good understanding of a field of study
• Have demonstrated the ability to produce and/or analyze data under supervision
• Be capable of critical analysis, evaluation and synthesis of new and complex ideas
• Be able to explain the outcome of research and value thereof to research colleagues

Academic background in psychology, cognitive neuroscience, epidemiology, genetics, biostatistics, data science, or a related field.

• Knowledge of reading development, psycholinguistics, bilingualism, psychometric assessment, or environmental/genetic epidemiology.
• Experience with genetically informed statistical methods, such as polygenic scores, family-based designs, or genomic structural equation modelling.
• Experience with behavioural, genetic, or neuroimaging data acquisition, preprocessing, or analysis, including work with children and families.
• Programming skills, preferably in R or Python, and familiarity with statistical or computational data analysis.
• Familiarity with reproducible research practices, version control, high-performance computing, BIDS-compatible data organization, or large-scale multimodal dataset management.
• Ability to work collaboratively within an interdisciplinary research team while progressively developing scientific independence.
• Strong written and spoken English and the ability to communicate research clearly.
• Experience acquired through non-formal training, international mobility, or professional mobility that demonstrates effective communication and adaptability in an international research environment.

Additional considerations (if any):

No project-specific retention, redeployment, mobility, or previous BCBL membership requirements apply. The position is open to all candidates who meet the funding scheme and EHU doctoral admission requirements. Recruitment will follow BCBL's equal-opportunity.

• The corporative language at the Center is English but the local languages (Basque, Spanish) will be an asset for this particular position
• The center provides initial level Spanish and Basque lessons to all the international staff members
• The interview will be conducted entirely in English

at the BCBL- Basque Center on Cognition Brain and Language (San Sebastián, Basque Country, Spain) www.bcbl.eu

The Basque Center on Cognition Brain and Language (BCBL) in San Sebastian (Basque Country, Spain) is looking for a Research Assistant to join its team.

• Position: PhD student
• Researcher Profile: First Stage Researcher (R1- up to the point of PhD)
• Number of vacancies: 1
• Project: READEXP
• Funding sources: Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and University
• Location: Spain > San Sebastian
• Research Field: Neuroscience > Cognition and Language
• Type of contract/Duration of Contract: 4 years
• Job Status: Full-time
• Hours per week: 35
• Starting date: Flexible between 01/01/2027 and 30/04/2027
• Application deadline: 08/11/2026

Reading is a foundational skill, and children with reading difficulties are at increased risk for later educational and employment problems. Although reading development is shaped by both genetic and environmental factors, the specific environmental exposures that influence individual differences remain insufficiently understood. Identifying these modifiable factors is essential to inform policies that promote equitable learning opportunities. However, environmental associations may be misleading if genetic confounding is not properly accounted for.

READEXP addresses two timely questions: (i) which modifiable environmental exposures influence reading development, and (ii) how can environmental effects be distinguished from genetically mediated associations? To do so, we combine two complementary genetically-informed strategies. First, we evaluate known exposure-outcome relationships and identify novel environmental variables while controlling for genetic liability using polygenic scores (PGS). Second, we independently assess environmental effects in a new child-parent cohort using the Familial Control Method (FCM), which uses parental reading skills as an indirect proxy for children's inherited genetic predispositions. Together, these approaches allow us to evaluate environmental effects both at the population level (via PGS) and within families (via FCM), strengthening causal inference. By focusing on modifiable exposures and rigorously addressing genetic confounding, the project aims to generate actionable insights that can inform evidence-based interventions and policies to support more equitable reading development.

The successful candidate will join the Educational Neurosciences and Developmental Disorders (ENDD) research group at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL) and conduct a PhD within the READEXP project, characterizing the reading exposome, by identifying exposure measures that affect reading performance after accounting for potential genetic confounds. The researcher will contribute to all aspects of the project, with a focus on the reading exposome assessment through an intergenerational approach using the Familial Control Method (FCM), including the collection, preprocessing, and integration of exposure variables (questionnaire data) and reading-related traits (behavioural data) from children and parents. Exposure variables will cover, at minimum, socio-demographic, linguistic, home-literacy and general home-environment domains. The local population that will be studied in this project is particularly interesting because of the highly bilingual society in two linguistically distant but orthographically similar languages (Basque and Spanish). In addition, the researcher will also participate in the Exposome Wide Association Studies (EWAS), helping to identify and assess new candidate exposure variables that will inform the intergenerational study.

Core responsibilities will include coordinating intergenerational study design, data collection, and management; preprocessing and integrating multi-source exposure and behavioural data into harmonized datasets; and contributing to the EWAS by helping identify, validate, and characterize candidate exposure variables linked to reading performance, accounting for genetic confounds.

The PhD student will enroll in the Cognitive Neuroscience program at the University of the Basque Country (EHU) and will work under the direct supervision of Dr. Carrión-Castillo and collaborate with BCBL researchers and international experts in reading, genomics, neuroimaging and intergenerational transmission. In addition to the excellent doctoral training opportunities at the BCBL (programming, neuroimaging techniques, scientific communication), the student will receive specialized training to handle and analyze large, multimodal datasets, comprising neuroimaging and genotyped data from cohorts of thousands of individuals, including polygenic scores and genomic structural equation modelling. The student will have the opportunity to carry out a research stay with international collaborators. The position also involves participation in group and center-wide scientific meetings, presentation of findings at international conferences and preparation of peer-reviewed publications.