Research Scientist, All-Optical Investigation of Rodent Cognition

Astera is a private foundation on a mission to steer science and technology toward a better future. We believe the coming years will bring an era of unprecedented scientific and technological advancement as exponential progress in AI converges with central advances in other fields to accelerate innovation. This inflection point provides an unparalleled opportunity to fundamentally rethink the institutions systems and tools that drive progress. We have committed a $3.5B endowment to that work and fit the form of our support to the function it serves: grants investments and in-house research programs. We accept meaningful risk in the research we back and expect some of it to fail because transformative ideas are rarely the ones already proven. Our projects and the foundation itself operate like high-velocity startups with a high performance bar and competitive compensation to match. We are searching for leaders who are compelled by the challenge of driving high-impact change in the way science is funded conducted and communicated. You can read more about our mission vision and programming at Overview

Astera Neuro seeks to understand and engineer consciousness. We believe consciousness is the process by which the brain builds a coherent internal model of the world and the self. We aim to understand this model and to develop the technologies to write experience directly into the brain. By combining large-scale neural recording causal perturbation and brain-based AI we seek to move neuroscience from observing correlates of experience to engineering it. The same tools carry direct therapeutic promise for neurological and psychiatric diseases that alter perception thought and sense of self. Because the science and tools required do not yet exist we are assembling a founding team of neuroscientists theorists and engineers to create them. We do high-risk high-reward science in a well-resourced collaborative environment with competitive pay and share everything openly under Asteras Open Science Policy.

We are seeking an experimental neuroscientist to join Astera Neuros rodent neuroscience team and use all-optical methods to investigate how the brain builds and uses an internal model of the world. You will help define the cognitive processes and behavioral paradigms that make this question experimentally tractable in mice.

You will use two-photon imaging and holographic photostimulation to read write and perturb neural activity at single-cell resolution with the goal of predictably changing an animals cognitive state and ultimately controlling the contents of its internal model. This is an end-to-end experimental role spanning task design surgery all-optical experimentation and large-scale neural data analysis.

• Help define the cognitive processes and experimental questions we pursue in mice and design and iterate head-fixed behavioral paradigms to probe them.

• Run two-photon imaging and holographic photostimulation experiments to read write and perturb specific neural activity patterns at single-cell resolution during behavior.

• 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: 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.

Required:

• PhD in neuroscience bioengineering physics or a related field or equivalent research experience. We value demonstrated skill and relevant experience above credentials.

• Hands-on mouse survival surgery experience: chronic cranial windows headbars and stereotaxic injections.

• 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.

Preferred/Nice to Have

• Experience with head-fixed rodent behavior and task design; closed-loop and real-time experiments.

• Prior systems neuroscience research on cognition including working memory decision-making perception 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); soma-targeted opsins such as ChRmine.

• Conviction that the brains internal model can be understood in full and that getting there requires a kind of science no single academic lab can do; were betting on scale deep collaboration across science and engineering and open sharing of ideas 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; rigs surgical preparations and analysis pipelines are standardized so they can be shared and datasets are designed to stitch across sessions and animals.

• Care for the animals: healthy well-handled mice supported by dedicated veterinary oversight are the foundation of both the science and its credibility.

• Commitment to open science; we release tools data and methods and aim to create a new dynamic of rapid open exchange in neuroscience.

Research Scientist at Astera Neuro running an all-optical program to read write and perturb neural activity in mouse cortex at single-cell resolution. You will help define the cognitive processes we pursue design the behavioral tasks they require perform the surgeries those tasks depend on and run the two-photon holographic optogenetics that causally manipulates an animals internal model. This work sits within Astera Neuros larger effort to answer the hardest and least understood questions in neuroscience: how the brain generates thoughts intelligence and consciousness.

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!