Prospective Students & Open Roles

How to Contact Us

Positions in the lab are typically only available when specifically advertised and funded - any open roles will be advertised above.

Note that as a Research Fellow at an early career stage, Nick is not currently able to act as a primary PhD supervisor; any prospective PhD students need to be primarily supervised by a more senior colleague at Imperial and should reach out to them instead.

With that said, speculative enquiries are welcome, particularly from postdocs and research assistants whose interests align closely with the lab’s work.

When you email, please:

• Use the subject line: [Prospective: Role Type] (e.g., [Prospective: Postdoc])
• Include a short paragraph on why you are interested in this specific lab’s work — not just digital wellbeing research generally
• Attach your CV
• Share any relevant work: preprints, code, thesis chapters, or a portfolio

Generic enquiries that do not engage with the lab’s research are unlikely to receive a response. We aim to reply to genuine enquiries within two weeks.

Lab Values

• Methods: The majority of work combines passive behavioural data from gaming and social media platforms with experience sampling - in these projects, comfort with quantitative methods is important; prior expertise in digital wellbeing specifically is not.

  • We also apply other methods, including qualitative and participatory research, and are open to other types of media within the broad remit of digital wellbeing.

• Open research: Where relevant, we preregister hypotheses, share code and data (while respective ethics and privacy) alongside every paper, and require that quantitative analyses be reproduced by at least one other lab member before submission.

  • Formal theory development and the advancement of causal models are a particular focus of our open research efforts.

• Industry independence: Nick engages in active dialogue and occasional collaboration with industry (particularly the games industry), but does not accept funds from industry in any form, either as an individual or as research funding.

• Openness to criticism: We give and receive honest, good-natured criticism as a normal part of the research process - of each other’s work and of the field’s assumptions.

• Work–life balance: Research can be a wonderful, fulfilling job, but is just one of many wonderful parts of life, and our working style reflects that.