Research Scientist, All-Optical Working Memory

Astera Institute•Emeryville, CA

5d•$80,000 - $150,000•Onsite

About The Position

Astera Neuro is a philanthropically funded research organization within the Astera Institute, working to decipher and ultimately write the neural codes underlying perception, thought, behavior, and internal state. The tools this requires do not yet exist. We are assembling a founding team of experimental neuroscientists, computational scientists, and engineers to build them, from recording and interface hardware to software and computational methods, and to use them to study neural activity at unprecedented scale, with direct promise for treating neurological and psychiatric disease. We pursue high-risk, high-reward science in a collaborative, well-resourced environment and share our tools, data, and discoveries openly under Astera's Open Science Policy. We are hiring a PhD-level scientist to join Astera Neuro's rodent neuroscience team. Your initial assignment is to read, write, and perturb the content of working memory in mouse cortex at single-cell resolution. The ideal candidate is an experimentalist who can carry the work end to end: design a working-memory task, run a closed-loop holographic write-in experiment on the rig, and write the population-analysis pipeline. You want institutional support and the freedom to move fast on a problem that matters. All animal work is conducted under IACUC-approved protocols with a deep commitment to animal welfare and AAALAC standards.

Requirements

Conviction that the brain's internal model can be understood in full, and recognition that getting there requires a kind of science no single academic lab can do. We are betting on scale, on deep collaboration across science and engineering, and on open sharing of ideas and expertise in a full-stack environment.
Willingness to be held to an engineering standard. Our decisive tests are write-in experiments: constructing a specific percept, thought, or internal state, not merely decoding one. What we cannot build, we do not understand.
Comfort building on shared infrastructure rather than private projects. The rig, the surgical preparations, and the analysis pipelines are standardized so that they can be shared, and datasets are designed to stitch across sessions and animals. This means building things others can use, and using theirs.
Commitment to open science. We will release tools, data, and methods, and we aim to create a new dynamic of rapid, open exchange in neuroscience.
Hands-on mouse survival surgery experience, including chronic cranial windows, headbars, and stereotaxic injections.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience with in vivo two-photon calcium imaging and/or holographic (SLM-based) optogenetics in rodents.
Practical experience with two-photon systems: optical alignment, system characterization, and in vivo use.
Proficiency in scientific computing for neural-data analysis: Python and/or MATLAB, with Suite2p, CaImAn, or comparable pipelines.
Experience with head-fixed rodent behavior and task design, including closed-loop and real-time experiments.
Prior systems neuroscience research in cortex, working memory, decision-making, or motor/premotor circuits.
Experience with ultrafast pulsed lasers (Ti:Sapphire, fiber) and nonlinear optics.
Two-photon optogenetics (SLM-based holography, temporal focusing, or spiral-scanning photostimulation), including soma-targeted opsins such as ChRmine.

Responsibilities

Design and iterate a head-fixed mouse working-memory task, and get animals performing it reliably.
Run two-photon holographic photostimulation experiments: read population activity during the task, then write in and perturb the held representation at single-cell resolution.
Run holographic targeting, power calibration, and closed-loop stimulation on the all-optical rig, working with our optics engineering team.
Lead computational analysis of large-scale neural population data, including dimensionality reduction, population decoding, GLMs, and circuit-level inference.
Set the viral and transgenic expression strategy, including soma-targeted ChRmine and GCaMP.
Perform mouse survival surgery under aseptic technique and IACUC-approved protocols: stereotaxic viral injection, chronic cranial-window implantation, and headbar installation.
Mentor research associates and technicians, and at the senior or principal level, more junior scientists. Contribute to hiring, onboarding, and lab culture.
Contribute to publications, talks, open data and tooling releases, and engagement with the broader scientific community.