St. Jude expands cognitive neuroscience research support with new associate role
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is recruiting a Clinical Research Associate II for its Division of Cognitive Neuroscience, a position centered on the operational backbone of studies that track brain health, cognitive function, and neurological outcomes in both pediatric and adult populations. The opening sits within the Department of Psychology and Biobehavioral Sciences and is designed for someone who can move between participant-facing work, data management, and the regulatory demands of multi-site research without losing precision. In practical terms, the role exists to keep complex neuroscience studies moving when the science depends on tightly timed assessments, standardized procedures, and careful coordination across disciplines.
The job description makes clear that this is not a narrow administrative post. The associate will support research involving neuropsychological assessment, neuroimaging, neuromodulation, and behavioral intervention studies, with an emphasis on maintaining study quality from enrollment through data verification. The research environment also extends across neurodegenerative diseases, neurological conditions, mental health outcomes, and neuroscience-based interventions, suggesting a portfolio that spans both disease mechanisms and function-oriented outcomes. For patients and families, that kind of infrastructure matters because cognitive testing, imaging, and physiologic data often need to be collected in exact sequence to preserve interpretability.
One sentence captures the clinical reality of this role: precision in study operations can determine whether a neuroscience dataset is usable at all.
Neuroimaging, stimulation, and cognition in one workflow
The most distinctive feature of the position is its technical range. Candidates are expected to be familiar with MRI- and fNIRS-based research, TMS, tDCS, TIS, cognitive testing, eye tracking, and biological or behavioral data collection. Those terms are not decorative; they map to the tools increasingly used to measure brain function from several angles at once. Neuroimaging provides structural and functional context, neuromodulation probes whether targeted stimulation can alter circuit activity, and cognitive testing helps connect laboratory signals to attention, memory, executive function, and other real-world outcomes.
That mix demands a coordinator who can prepare participants, schedule procedures, manage timepoints, and preserve consistency across repeated measures. In a multisite prospective study, even a small deviation in how a participant is prepared or when a measure is captured can complicate analysis. The role therefore sits at the intersection of neurobiology and operations, where methodological discipline supports the scientific question rather than standing apart from it.
The responsibilities listed for the post reflect that structure. The associate will coordinate scheduling, data collection, submission, and summary reporting for multi-site prospective studies. The position also includes assistance with study planning and the preparation of regulatory materials, along with recruitment, enrollment, and participant evaluation. In a field where different sites may use shared protocols but face different daily workflows, the ability to keep study materials synchronized becomes a substantive research skill.
Data quality is part of the science
The posting places unusual weight on quality assurance and the management of multimodal research data. Behavioral, cognitive, neuroimaging, and physiological measures all carry different failure points: some depend on participant cooperation, some on technician readiness, and some on timing and machine calibration. The associate will be expected to perform data verification and entry at specified timepoints, develop and implement standard operating procedures, and follow those procedures consistently across studies.
That work is especially important in cognitive neuroscience, where a single participant may contribute several layers of data in one visit. A neuropsychological battery can capture performance-based cognitive outcomes, imaging can reveal circuit-level patterns, and neuromodulation sessions can introduce an intervention component that changes how later visits are interpreted. When those streams are aligned correctly, the study can connect biology to function. When they are not, the science becomes harder to trust.
There is also direct participant-facing work built into the role. The associate may conduct neuromodulation and cognitive training sessions, which means the position extends beyond oversight into active study delivery. That makes communication skills and attention to detail indispensable, especially when working in multidisciplinary teams that include faculty investigators and collaborating department members. The posting describes a setting where coordination is not ancillary to discovery; it is the mechanism by which discovery becomes possible.
A research role shaped by translational neuroscience needs
The advertised compensation range, listed as $70,720 to $126,880 per year, places the position in a specialized professional tier appropriate to the technical demands described. The salary disclosure also signals that the institution expects experience, training, licensure, or certification to influence where a candidate lands within that range. For a hospital research program with pediatric and adult participants, that kind of staffing investment is consistent with a portfolio that depends on both human subject protection and data integrity.
The structure of the role also hints at the broader direction of cognitive neuroscience research in clinical settings. Studies of neurological conditions and mental health outcomes increasingly rely on combined datasets rather than isolated endpoints. Neuroimaging can suggest how a circuit behaves, neuromodulation can test whether that circuit is modifiable, and behavioral measures can determine whether any change reaches the level of function. A coordinator who understands how those pieces fit together helps ensure that the scientific narrative remains coherent from protocol design to final analysis.
One practical consequence follows directly from the job design: studies that depend on synchronized behavioral, physiologic, and imaging data can lose value quickly if operations drift.
St. Jude describes the hiring process as human-centered and notes that technology may support portions of it, but the role itself is clearly aimed at hands-on research execution. The posting closes with the kind of institutional language common to major employers, including equal opportunity employment and a statement that unsolicited search firm assistance is not accepted. Those details frame the administrative side of the opening, but the core of the announcement remains scientific: this is a research operations role built to support cognitive neuroscience studies that require exacting coordination, disciplined documentation, and familiarity with advanced brain research methods.