We welcome students and postdocs who are interested in joining the lab! If you’re interested in joining for a MSci project, MSc project, DPhil (PhD) or postdoc, please read the information below carefully.
First of all, we are most keen to attract students/postdocs who propose projects that are (in some way) related to our ongoing work. To get a sense of our recent work, I’ve recorded a ~30-minute video of a recent talk from a conference (September 2026). If you’re interested in joining the group, please watch this talk before getting in touch!
MSci (4th year undergraduates in EP/PPL)
We welcome students who are currently on the 4-year undegraduate degree in EP/PPL to consider a project in the lab in 2027-28. Please find further details in the project handbook.
If you’d like to discuss the projects further, please book a spot at one of the three Q&A sessions that I’m holding in Life and Mind during Michaelmas term, all in room 10.055:
Monday of week 3 (26th October 2026, 2pm)
Thursday of week 5 (12th November 2026, 4pm)
Friday of week 7 (27th November 2026, 3pm)
You can book sign up for the Q&A sessions by visiting this form: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/AyPMqARCvS
Potential PhD (DPhil) Students
If you are interested in doing a PhD in the lab, the best route is through one of the university’s funded schemes, such as the Doctoral Training Programme in Neuroscience, the ILESLA Doctoral Training Programme, or the Department of Experimental Psychology DPhil programme. Students who have already secured a funded place on a University PhD scheme are welcome to get in touch with me.
If you want to apply via the Departmental DPhil scheme, please click here to send a brief email to laurence.hunt@psy.ox.ac.uk with (a) your academic CV (b) a one-page outline proposal sketch. Please leave [DPhil in Experimental Psychology application - SURNAME] in the email subject. I will review all applications in early November, and get in touch with promising applicants to develop a full proposal in time for the December deadline.
Tips for good PhD proposals: For the Departmental DPhil programme, the department will ultimately requires a 4-page research proposal - please see the advice below, lightly adapted from my friend and colleague Prof Chris Summerfield, for helpful advice on this.
The admissions committee will expect to see a proposal with the following elements:
An introduction that sets out the current state of the literature
A clearly articulated research question that is grounded in this literature
A methodological approach that is carefully designed to answer the research question
About 2-3 proposed experiments (can be simulations) with specific predictions, ideally that build upon one another in a coherent fashion
Some sort of statement of what we will know after the research has been conducted that we do not know now
We won’t support proposals that are wildly different from the work that we are currently doing (see the talk above, and papers from our previous work) - or proposals that involve methods to which we don’t currently have access (e.g. work with clinical populations, unless these can be pursued with specific collaborators - again see papers).
Please note that we do not tend to accept applicants to the MSc by Research in Psychology in our lab.
Postdocs
We welcome applications to join the lab from prospective postdocs. At present, we don’t have funded positions available - so we can only accept applicants who can be supported by a postdoctoral fellowship. You should get in touch several months before you are looking for positions. I’d strongly recommend looking at this list (kindly provided by Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore) - and also considering the Oxford Junior Research Fellowship schemes, which are advertised via the Oxford Gazette.
Other MSc courses, rotation schemes, Doctoral Training programmes
We occasionally offer rotation projects on the MSc in Neuroscience, MSc in Clinical and Therapeutic Neuroscience, and supervise students from other Doctoral Training/Masters’ programs. But if you’re already taking one of these courses, and we’re not currently listing a project, do feel free to get in touch if you think it is relevant to our work.