Computational Neuroscientist, Modeling Theory

Company Overview

Astera Neuro part of the Astera Institute is building the tools to decipher and ultimately write the neural codes behind perception thought behavior and internal state. Since these tools dont yet exist were assembling a founding team of neuroscientists computational scientists and engineers to build them (hardware software and methods) and use them to study neural activity at unprecedented scale with direct relevance to neurological and psychiatric disease. We do high-risk high-reward science in a well-resourced collaborative environment with competitive pay and share our work openly under Asteras Open Science Policy.

Position Summary

Computational Neuroscientists at Astera Neuro develop and lead research programs aimed at understanding the representations and dynamics underlying conscious access and at converting that understanding into the ability to steer the system. The work sits at the intersection of cognitive theory large-scale neural data and machine learning and draws on recordings from our primate rodent and human programs. The opportunity here is to create an entirely new theoretical framework for how the brain builds an internal model of the world on data of a scale breadth and quality that has not previously existed.

Computation sits at the vital core of Astera Neuro. The role is built around tight coupling with experiment; models are expected to make testable predictions and to propose the next experiment rather than wait for it. Title and scope are calibrated to track record.

Successful applicants will focus on one or more of Astera Neuros primary research tracks with background and interest helping determine the best fit. Some positions suit scientists with a bent for modeling large-scale neural data extracting structure from recordings that span many areas sessions animals and species. Others suit scientists with a more theoretical bent concerned with abstracting the key computational principles out of the data and into new NeuroAI architectures. We welcome computational scientists trained outside neuroscience; backgrounds in control theory robotics theoretical physics statistics and machine learning are all highly valued here.

What Youll Do

• Build models of compositional neural representation grounded in cognitive theory and fit to recordings: how the brain binds content to variables composes structured thought and updates it.

• Build coupled dynamical-systems models of the interactions between multiple brain areas and test them against simultaneous multi-area recordings.

• Analyze the fixed-point structure of these systems and characterize the landscape of stable states underlying percepts thoughts and internal states.

• Derive how to sculpt inputs using our optogenetic and electrical stimulation technology to drive the system to chosen stable points and validate those derivations in closed-loop write-in experiments.

• Stitch data together across subjects and species into foundation models of neural activity registered onto a common whole-brain functional and anatomical atlas.

• Propose and help design new experiments: identify the measurement or perturbation that would most sharply separate competing models and work with the experimental teams to run it.

• Abstract key computational principles from the data into new NeuroAI architectures in some cases in direct collaboration with Astera AI.

• Mentor research engineers 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.

Who You Are

Required:

• PhD with 3-12 years of experience in computational neuroscience neuroscience physics statistics applied mathematics electrical engineering computer science control theory robotics or a related field or equivalent research experience. Graduate work or research experience in neuroscience is a plus but not required.

• Demonstrated ability to lead a computational or theoretical research project end to end from question and formulation through implementation analysis and publication.

• Depth in dynamical systems including fixed-point and attractor analysis stability and bifurcation structure and the fitting of dynamical models to noisy partially observed data.

• Strong computational skills with fluency in Python and modern machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch or JAX and comfort with large-scale data pipelines.

• Hands-on experience analyzing large-scale neural datasets from electrophysiology two-photon imaging or comparable methods including high-density recordings such as Neuropixels and modern spike-sorting and quality-control pipelines such as Kilosort.

• Ability to work at close quarters with experimental neuroscientists software engineers and hardware engineers in a fast-moving multi-team environment.

Preferred/Nice to Have:

• Experience with latent-variable and state-space models of neural population activity such as GPFA LFADS switching state-space models or recurrent network models fit to data.

• Background in control theory optimal control or robotics particularly as applied to steering high-dimensional systems toward target states.

• Background in statistics or theoretical physics with a serious interest in applying it to neural systems.

• Experience designing or implementing real-time or closed-loop decoders and model-guided stimulation.

• Experience with foundation-model and self-supervised approaches applied to neural or behavioral data and interest in the correspondence between artificial and biological representations.

• Contributions to open-source neuroscience or scientific computing projects.

What We Value

• Conviction that the brains internal model can be understood in full and recognition that getting there requires a kind of science no single academic lab can do.

• Appetite for building theory rather than applying it: the framework that explains how a physical system converges on a stable internal model of the world doesnt yet exist and were looking for people who want to build it.

• Willingness to be held to an engineering standard: our decisive tests are write-in experiments not merely decoding. What we cannot build we do not understand.

• Comfort building on shared infrastructure rather than private projects.

• Commitment to open science.

Additionally Expected at Senior / Principal Level

• Track record of owning a modeling or theory agenda end to end including framing the question collaborating with experimentalists and delivering results.

• Experience making and defending modeling tradeoffs across interpretability predictive accuracy and experimental utility.

• Comfort working across the stack from data infrastructure and analysis pipelines through to theory and machine learning.

• History of mentoring scientists or leading technical initiatives (Principal level).

Why Join Us

Computational Neuroscientist at Astera Neuro focused on answering the hardest and least understood questions in neuroscience: how the brain generates thoughts intelligence and consciousness. We seek to understand the compositional structure of neural representations and the dynamics that give rise to conscious access and to build the theory that explains how a physical system converges on a stable internal model of the world.

Astera Neuro provides a comprehensive benefits package and total compensation that is competitive and commensurate with the level of experience and qualifications.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity and inclusion!

Required Experience:

IC