Staff Scientist - Auditory or Tactile Perception

Staff Scientist - Auditory or Tactile Perception Institute for All Minds Berkeley, CA Job Details Full-time From $105,000 a year 17 hours ago Benefits Free parking Health insurance Paid time off Qualifications Doctoral degree Surgery Doctor of Philosophy Animal handling 3D printing Adaptability In vivo studies Research & development Animal physiology Full Job Description The Institute for All Minds seeks a full-time, on-site Staff Scientist to focus on auditory or tactile perception. You will exerimentally investigate how the brain causes conscious hearing and touch experiences. You will develop novel behavioral assays and then leverage these assays to identify the neural circuits that separately and specifically cause the conscious and unconscious aspects of hearing and touch. Your work will get us closer to understanding how the brain causes conscious experience, an ancient philosophical question that underlies the core of human existence, one that we are now poised to answer.

Responsibilities:

(1) Develop the research strategy by extensively reading and thinking of how to best investigate auditory or tactile experiences using the mouse (2) Design and build bespoke devices and behavioral apparatuses to investigate auditory or tactile perception (3) Conduct surgery, implanting devices on the mouse and stereotactically targeting injections into the mouse brain (4) Confirm neural manipulations using brain and other organ histology and immunohistochemistry (5) Record and analyze histological imagery, including quantification (6) After developing a reliable assay, train and manage a team of undergraduates on (3)-(5) to increase the throughput of discovery (7) Do whatever else is necessary for our scrappy research start-up to succeed!

Minimum Qualifications:

(A) PhD in Neuroscience or a related experimental field (B) Extensive experience with animal behavior and surgical and technical procedures, including measurement of physiology and behavior. The experience need not be with mice. (C) Avid, broad reader of the scientific literature who is deeply curious with a passion for learning. (D) Highly flexible and adaptable and very responsive to feedback (E) Creative problem-solver that loves to think up solutions from many different angles (F) Superb written and oral communication

Ideal Qualifications:

(G) Extensive experience with auditory or touch perception in humans or animal models (H) Extensive experience with stereotactic surgery and device installation on mice (I) Extensive experience with brain histology, immunohistochemistry, and image analysis (J) Extensive experience with extracellular physiology in behaving mice (e.g. Neuropixels) (K) Adept at engineering, including electrical, mechanical, and software, as well as manufacturing methods, such as 3D printing (L) Always thinking of whether there is an alternative approach that would be more efficient and effective at reaching the goal (M) Thrives when working independently with intermittant guidance

Compensation:

The Institute offers a competitive salary, paid time off, medical insurance, as well as perks such as free meals, free parking and 20% time to work on a project of your choice, as pioneered by Google. About the Institute for

All Minds :

We take a very broad approach to our problems and strongly favor exploration over hypothesis, especially in the early stages of a project. We believe scientists should focus on problems that matter and ensure that time and energy are well-spent, not bogged down by unnecessary overhead and bureaucracy. We try to use the simplest words available to explain what we are doing and why we are doing it. When traditional approaches have failed, we ignore conventional thinking and try to attack a problem from first principles using methods that are most likely to provide the right answer. The Institute is a federally-recognized non-profit public charity dedicated to understanding (1) how the brain causes conscious experience and (2) how neurons die during neurodegeneration. The founder, Nikhil Bhatla, PhD, has focused on scientific approaches for studying conscious experience since 2007. He received his BS at Stanford University in Product Design (Mechanical Engineering and Art) and a minor in Computer Science. Following several years working at Google, he received a PhD in Neuroscience from MIT, where he worked in a Nobel prize-winning lab. He then completed a Neuroscience postdoc at UCSF and UC Berkeley as a Miller Fellow, where he developed an innovative approach for studying conscious visual perception using mice (https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(26)00320-9). In 2024, he started the Institute for All Minds to continue this work in an independent, fast-paced research organization. The Institute is located in Downtown Berkeley very close to the BART subway station, making it easily accessible by public transit from throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. How to

Apply:

​ Please email describing why you are excited about this position and why it is a good fit for your interests and skills, with your resume / CV as an attachment. Email applications are preferred and more likely to get a reponse than applying through Indeed. We look forward to hearing from you.

Pay:

From $105,000.00 per year

Benefits:

Health insurance Paid time off

Education:

Doctorate (Required)

Work Location:

In person