Staff Scientist - Consciousness or Neurodegeneration

The Institute for All Minds seeks two full-time, on-site Staff Scientists. The first position is to lead research to experimentally investigate how the brain causes conscious experience. You will begin by leveraging a new mouse model of conscious visual perception to identify the neural circuits that separately and specifically cause the conscious and unconscious aspects of seeing. You will also be responsible for the development of new assays to understand other kinds of conscious experiences, such as tactile and auditory perception, free will and emotions. 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. The second position is to lead research on a novel form of neurodegeneration. The principal goal of this program is to determine whether this form of neuronal death contributes to one or more of the top currently untreatable neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and ALS. Responsibilities. These vary depending on the topic (consciousness or neurodegeneration), but generally include the following: (1) Develop the research strategy by extensively reading and thinking of how to best investigate the topic, eithe conscious experiences or neurodegeneration using the mouse (2) Design and build bespoke devices and behavioral apparatuses to investigate different conscious experiences (3) Train mice using these apparatuses as needed (4) Conduct surgery, implanting devices on the mouse and stereotactically targeting injections into the mouse brain (5) Confirm neural manipulations using brain and other organ histology and immunohistochemistry (6) Record and analyze histological imagery, including quantification esp. for neurodegeneration (7) Train and manage a team of undergraduates on (3)-(6) to increase the throughput of discovery (8) 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. When you go to the beach, you bring a journal. (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 training mice in behavioral assays (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) Extensive experience studying the entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus (L) Adept at engineering, including electrical, mechanical, and software, as well as manufacturing methods, such as 3D printing (M) Always thinking of whether there is an alternative approach that would be more efficient and effective at reaching the goal (N) Thrives when working independently with intermittant guidance (O) A deep desire for meaning and purpose in life that only studying how the brain causes consciousness can fulfill

Compensation:

The Institute offers a competitive salary, paid time off, a retirement plan, 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. Most hypotheses are wrong, so we are better off screening and letting the right approaches surface. 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. For these reasons we have established an independent institute rather than pursuing this work within academia. 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 work@iam.science 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.

Job Type:

Full-time Benefits:

Dental insurance Health insurance Paid time off Retirement plan Vision insurance Application Question(s): Please remember that you must attach a cover letter describing why your skills and interests make you a good fit for this position. You can do this below or with an attachment at the end of the application. Candidates without a cover letter will not be reviewed. If the cover letter is generated or modified by AI, your application will not be considered. Thank you.

Education:

Doctorate (Required)

Work Location:

In person