Research Scientist

The role

Research Scientists develop and lead research programs to understand how the brain builds models of the physical world, forms thoughts, and creates a model of the self. The role involves designing behavioral paradigms and executing large-scale neural recording and causal perturbation experiments.

What you will do

• Design behavioral paradigms aligned with scientific goals.
• Design and execute large-scale, multi-area neural recording experiments in awake, behaving subjects.
• Design and execute write-in experiments targeting visual percepts, thoughts, and internal states using model-guided closed-loop stimulation.
• Build and analyze datasets to support brain-wide, single-neuron-resolution representations.
• Collaborate across electrophysiology, holography, computational, and engineering teams.
• Mentor research technicians and junior scientists.
• Contribute to publications, talks, open data and tooling releases.

Required qualifications

• PhD with 5-12+ years of experience in neuroscience, cognitive, behavioral, or medical sciences, biology, biomedical engineering, or a related field, or equivalent research experience.
• Hands-on experience with chronic, multi-area, large-scale electrophysiology in awake, behaving animals performing complex cognitive paradigms, including high-density Neuropixels recordings and chronic
• Demonstrated ability to lead a systems neuroscience project end to end.
• Strong quantitative and computational skills, with fluency in Python and/or MATLAB.
• Experience with modern spike sorting and quality-control pipelines, and analysis of high-dimensional population data.
• Ability to work at close quarters with software engineers, hardware engineers, and computational neuroscientists.
• Experience with optogenetic, electrical, or other 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.

Nice to have

• Experience contributing to or leading large, multi-team programs (academic centers, institutes, foundations, or industry research labs).
• Track record of mentorship and technical leadership.

Benefits

• Competitive pay
• Comprehensive benefits package

About the company

Astera Neuro seeks to understand and engineer consciousness by combining large-scale neural recording, causal perturbation, and brain-based AI. They are assembling a founding team of neuroscientists, theorists, and engineers to create new science and tools.