Research Scientist
Astera Institute is an active nonprofit research institute and foundation that operates in-house neuroscience-informed AI research and funds, operates, and supports open-science programs and public goods.
About Astera Institute
Astera operates three divisions: Neuro-AI, Radial life-sciences research, and its Foundation. Its AI work pursues neuroscience-informed approaches to artificial general intelligence, while its foundation and Radial activities support open scientific infrastructure, datasets, research programs, and residencies.
Skills
Candidate Availability
Required and preferred rules are kept separate and reflect the wording in the original posting.
About the Role
You will lead research programs from hypothesis through publication, design behavioral and neural recording experiments, execute causal perturbation studies, analyze large-scale datasets, collaborate across technical disciplines, and mentor junior researchers.
Requirements
- PhD or equivalent research experience in neuroscience, cognitive science, behavioral science, medical science, biology, biomedical engineering, or a related field
- Experience with chronic, multi-area, large-scale electrophysiology in awake, behaving animals
- Experience leading systems neuroscience projects from hypothesis through publication
- Quantitative and computational skills using Python and/or MATLAB
- Experience with spike sorting, quality-control pipelines, and high-dimensional population-data analysis
- Experience with causal perturbation methods across multiple animal models
- Experience with closed-loop or real-time experimental control and stimulation
- Familiarity with neural population dynamics and dynamical-systems modeling
Responsibilities
- Design behavioral paradigms aligned with scientific goals
- Design and execute large-scale neural recording experiments in awake, behaving subjects
- Design and execute causal perturbation experiments using model-guided closed-loop stimulation
- Build and analyze datasets across sessions, animals, and paradigms
- Collaborate with electrophysiology, holography, computational, and engineering specialists
- Mentor research technicians and junior scientists at senior or principal levels
- Contribute to publications, talks, open-data releases, and tooling releases