About the Lab

Laboratory Facilities

The Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging & Behavior is a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to affective and cognitive neuroscience research with brain imaging. The laboratory includes:

a 3T MR scanner dedicated solely to research;
extensive visual, auditory and gustatory stimulation capabilities with online eye-tracking during MR scans;
a PET scanner;
a microPET scanner;
a scanning simulation room with a mock scanner;
a tandem accelerator to support the PET scanners;
a 256 channel EEG facility for stand-alone and combined electrical and hemodynamic imaging studies; and
dedicated computing facilities.

The lab currently is home to faculty with expertise in neuroscience and psychology, physics and statistics. In addition, the lab includes trained personnel to facilitate imaging studies. The lab is a joint venture of the Waisman Center and the HealthEmotions Research Institute.

Training opportunities

So you want to apply to graduate school and work in the Davidson lab:

If you are interested in applying to graduate school and working in Dr. Davidson’s lab, here are some things you should know. We appreciate the interest and hope that more students get seriously involved in this kind of work since there are so many wonderful outstanding questions remaining to be studied and understood.

Our lab relies on sophisticated neuroimaging and other related biological methods to make inferences about processes in the brain and body during emotion, in psychopathology and in response to interventions designed to change emotion and cognition, including meditation. These methods require a strong technical background to master. Among the most important skills that are required are programming and statistical and quantitative skills. Relevant programming languages used in neuroscience vary greatly depending on the focus of the research but common examples include Python, R, and Matlab. In addition, familiarity with the command line in Unix or Mac OS is essential. Knowing any programming language is better than none, and will make learning other languages easier.

In addition, significant course work in computer science, biology (neuroscience) and physics are important and highly recommended. It is not necessary that incoming students be Psychology majors. In fact, some of our most successful students have been Physics, Computer Science and Neuroscience majors as undergraduates.

It is helpful to have significant research experience before applying to graduate school. This typically means spending several years post-college in a laboratory as a research assistant. Dr. Davidson almost never accepts a student directly from college. Virtually every one of the students in our lab has spent some time (often a lot of time) following college working in a laboratory setting.

If you wish to be seriously considered for a position in our lab, it is imperative that you have the kind of hard science, quantitative and programming background described above. If you have additional questions please inquire here: training@investigatinghealthyminds.org.

Employment

Current Staff Positions

There are two research specialist positions open:
http://www.ohr.wisc.edu/pvl/pv_075601.html
http://www.ohr.wisc.edu/pvl/pv_075602.html

Student Opportunities

We have ongoing recruitment of undergraduates for non-specific research positions in the Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior. If you are interested in applying for a position, please see Undergraduate Research Opportunities

General UW Staff Opportunities

For academic staff positions please search the UW-Madison position vacancy listings.

Associated Facilities: