Call for Applications! for PhD position! at Max Planck Law! Apply Now!

Your profile

We are seeking to recruit a PhD student with a strong empirical background and a keen interest in crime prevention and behavioral interventions. You will work with an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers and virtual reality developers to create and subsequently test interventions to reduce crime in urban settings.

The challenge

The criminologist’s key predicament resides in its object of study: crime takes place outside our field of view. As a consequence, criminologists have historically prioritized studying the properties of individuals and the social factors that propel them into and out of crime (e.g., peers, gangs, neighborhoods, dispositions) over examining their decision-making and the criminal event itself.

The MAXLab Virtual Twin Program seeks to address this gap by using virtual reality (VR) to test the effect of interventions in preventing crime and/or increasing public safety. For this purpose, VR replicas of street segments, squares, or other public spaces, i.e., “virtual twins” of the city of Freiburg (and potentially other cities), will be developed and experimentally manipulated. This approach enables the creation of realistic and ecologically valid versions of these areas while maintaining researcher control. Additionally, in a departure from conventional field experiments, VR experiments provide access to the research population and can hence tap into individuals’ motivations, emotions, and cognitions. This approach can offer unique insights into how interventions may work and for whom. Consequently, the research project can break new ground in advancing our understanding of criminal and anti-social behavior and how to reduce it.

You have

a completed (or are close to completing) university degree (master’s or equivalent) in psychology (e.g., social, developmental), pedagogy, (empirical) criminology, behavioral economics, sociology, or a similar discipline;
a background in statistics (e.g., SPSS, R, Stata, Python)
experience with experimental research;
a strong interest in crime research and novel research methods;
an interest in developing applied solutions in order to reduce crime;
a highly collaborative attitude (you value teamwork);
excellent written and spoken English language skills;
excellent social and communication skills.

Ideal candidates are committed to open science and transparent research practices. Speaking German is an asset but not a prerequisite for the position, nor is experience with VR or 3D modelling.

Please submit your application via our online application portal.