Opportunity: The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research – West (WRAIR-W) located in Tacoma, Washington is offering a postdoctoral research fellowship. The WRAIR-W team is strategically co-located with the Madigan Army Medical Center (MAMC) at Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM). The mission of WRAIR-W is to conduct research and deliver solutions to promote psychological readiness and improve behavioral health outcomes for Service Members. The WRAIR has an opportunity available for an NASEM postdoctoral candidate to gain valuable skills and experiences across all aspects of research, from funding acquisition and proposal planning to dissemination of research products to stakeholders, including the following:

• Research implementation, including protocol development, interacting with the Institutional Review Board, and generating materials.
• Administration of multimodal data collection tools, including skills in neuropsychological assessment, physiological assessment, biospecimen processing, and self-reported response methods.
• Research management and coordination, including recruitment of participants, scheduling visits, collecting biospecimen samples, and running data collection visits with participants.
• Research dissemination, including developing annual reports, brief to command teams, abstracts/posters to conferences, and manuscript for scientific journals.
• Funding acquisition and proposal planning, including identifying funding announcements, developing and submitting grant documentation, and working with key stakeholders across academic, government, and private industry on proposal methodology.

Project: In additional to the skills developed above, the NASEM postdoctoral candidate will assist in supporting execution of a large-scale, multi-site randomized controlled trial (RCT). See information for that project below.

Posttraumatic stress disorder is a chronic and disabling psychiatric disorder associated with poor social support, higher healthcare utilization, and increased mortality. Despite the societal, financial, and emotional strain that PTSD exerts upon patients, treatment options remain scarce, with only two FDA-approved pharmacotherapies for PTSD (both SSRIs) and no new drug approvals since 2001. The Department of Defense (DOD) PTSD Adaptive Platform Trial (APT) is a unique trial that will build a framework in which multiple potential treatments for PTSD can be tested, and to subsequently interrogate the biological and environmental factors that underpin their effectiveness in PTSD biomarker subtypes. Ultimately, this study aims to address the clinical and biological heterogeneity of PTSD in military populations and develop a precision-medicine approach – through the identification, characterization, and validation of candidate biomarkers – to the treatment of PTSD that can identify the most effective therapy for each patient’s unique biological or clinical characteristics.

Preferred Experience: WRAIR-W is seeking a postdoctoral fellow to support our involvement in the DOD PTSD APT. Specifically, our team is looking for a candidate with the following background and skills:

• Experience with research in domain(s) relevant to the DOD PTSD APT program, such as psychology, neurobiology, cognitive neuroscience, psychiatry, behavioral science, and/or nursing.
• Experience in administration of technical and instrumentational methods of data collection using multimodal tools, such as neuropsychological assessment, physiological assessment, biospecimen processing, and/or self-reported response methods.
• Experience with research organization, including preparing and processing materials needed for each research visit, filing, copying, data processing, and other general duties in support of the goals of the study.
• Excellent oral, email, and written communication skills.

References (3 max): 

Schnurr PP, Hayes AF, Lunney CA, McFall M, Uddo M. Longitudinal analysis of the relationship between symptoms and quality of life in veterans treated for posttraumatic stress disorder. J Consult Clin Psychol. 2006;74(4):707-13.

Committee on the Assessment of Ongoing Efforts in the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Military and Veteran Populations: Final Assessment. Board on the Health of Select Populations; Institute of Medicine. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2014 Jun 17. 300 p.

Saville BR, Berry SM. Efficiencies of Platform Clinical Trials: A Vision of the Future. Clinical Trials. 2016;13(3);358-66.

key words

trauma; posttraumatic stress; pharmacotherapy; adaptive platform trial; neuropsychological assessment; clinical psychology

Citizenship:  Open to U.S. citizens, permanent residents and non-U.S. citizens

Level:  Open to Postdoctoral and Senior applicants