{"id":2758,"date":"2026-01-27T22:18:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T22:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hobsonresearch.com\/?page_id=2758"},"modified":"2026-09-28T18:16:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T18:16:48","slug":"recruiting-parakeet-research-technicians","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hobsonresearch.com\/index.php\/join-the-lab\/recruiting-parakeet-research-technicians\/","title":{"rendered":"Recruiting parakeet research contractors"},"content":{"rendered":"<script type='text\/javascript' src='https:\/\/d1bxh8uas1mnw7.cloudfront.net\/assets\/embed.js'><\/script><p><strong>Recruiting parakeet research technicians!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Hobson Lab at the University of Cincinnati is recruiting research contractors on our Monk Parakeet sociality and cognition project at our research site in Texas. I&#8217;m recruiting one person to start ASAP (October 2026) and 1-3 people to start later, potentially in December\/January.<\/p>\n<p>These research contractors will join our crew of &#8220;postbacs&#8221;, who are people who have completed their undergrad degree (baccalaureate) but who have not yet started graduate school. Postbacs will collect data and run social experiments with captive groups of parakeets in large outdoor flight pens as well as providing animal care. They will gain experience in professional development skills like computational analyses in R, how to write papers\/grant proposals, how to give conference talks, etc. This position is meant to benefit our project with high-quality data collection but also serve to launch postbacs into success in their future positions\/careers.<\/p>\n<p>DATES<\/p>\n<p>Data is collected year-round at our research site. Initial postbac positions will be for 6 months, with potential extensions up to 12 months. If you applied to an earlier ad and didn\u2019t hear back, please apply again if you are still interested! We will also be recruiting in the future, keep an eye out for new announcements if you are interested in the position but the current dates don&#8217;t work for you at this time.<\/p>\n<p>DUTIES OF POSTBAC CONTRACTORS<\/p>\n<p>Duties will involve social observation and data collection on social interactions, running social experiments, catching and handling captive parakeets, and animal care. While this is a captive population, the flight pens are outdoors, so postbacs will need to be able to deal with weather, the possibility of bugs\/snakes, and long days in outdoor conditions. The postbacs will work under the guidance of Hobson Lab members. Postbacs will be considered \u201cindependent contractors\u201d and will not have any formal association with the University of Cincinnati or receive any benefits (e.g. no healthcare\/retirement).<\/p>\n<p>QUALIFICATIONS<\/p>\n<p>I am searching for reliable, hard-working researchers that are capable of working both independently and in teams. The basic qualifications are an interest in social interactions, keen observational skills, the patience and resourcefulness to thrive in research conditions, and a strong interest in the &#8220;social drama&#8221; of group-living cognitively complex species. Postbacs should be able to sit still for long periods of time, quietly and attentively observing behavior, be able to reliably record high quality data, and to work well as part of the team. Our birds are color-marked so field assistants must have full color vision and be able to differentiate between red, green, blue, etc. Animal handling experience (especially handling birds, and any bird capture\/banding experience) is desired, but I consider people without these skills. Postbacs must be willing to provide animal care to our captive population and previous animal care experience is definitely a plus. All postbacs must complete an online CITI course prior to starting work and provide documentation of course completion. Due to university regulations covering these hires, applicants need to be US citizens.<\/p>\n<p>People interested in research questions about social structure, information, recognition, cognition, and memory are particularly encouraged to apply, as are people who may be interested in the possibility of joining the Hobson Lab in the future. Postbacs may be able to join planned papers as co-authors and\/or develop side projects that can be completed along the main project aims and function as a postbac researcher. For an example of our recent work with sociality in these parakeets, see this recent talk at the Animal Behavior conference in 2025, featuring several postbac crew members as coauthors (<a href=\"https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/h8pcyprd\">https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/h8pcyprd<\/a>). More information about work with sociality and cognition in the lab can be found here:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hobsonresearch.com\/\">https:\/\/hobsonresearch.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>LOCATION<\/p>\n<p>Texas<\/p>\n<p>COMPENSATION<\/p>\n<p>Shared on-site housing for crew members<\/p>\n<p>Monthly stipend = $1000 per month to start<\/p>\n<p>Relocation support = $500 ($250 at start and end of contract)<\/p>\n<p>APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS<\/p>\n<p>People interested in the research positions should enter their information into this form:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/forms.gle\/HZgNHYEePsw1hzBGA\">https:\/\/forms.gle\/HZgNHYEePsw1hzBGA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Applicants should be prepared to answer questions about their interest in the project, their relevant previous experiences, upload a current CV in pdf form, and enter the names of 2-3 references who will be contacted for finalists.<\/p>\n<p>** Highly qualified candidates will be contacted on a rolling basis and hiring decisions will be made ASAP **<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recruiting parakeet research technicians! &nbsp; The Hobson Lab at the University of Cincinnati is recruiting research contractors on our Monk Parakeet sociality and cognition project at our research site in Texas. I&#8217;m recruiting one person to start ASAP (October 2026) and 1-3 people to start later, potentially in December\/January. These research contractors will join our &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hobsonresearch.com\/index.php\/join-the-lab\/recruiting-parakeet-research-technicians\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Recruiting parakeet research contractors&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2677,"parent":1058,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"pgc_meta":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2758","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"pgc_meta":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/PaupRd-Iu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobsonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobsonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobsonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobsonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobsonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2758"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/hobsonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2786,"href":"https:\/\/hobsonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2758\/revisions\/2786"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobsonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobsonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobsonresearch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}