Research Scientist
Apply on Astera Institute's site
Company 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 Astera's Open Science Policy.
Position Summary ====================
Research Scientists at Astera Neuro develop and lead research programs aimed at understanding how the brain builds a model of the physical world, forms new thoughts, and creates a stable model of the self. The goal is enough understanding and technical ability to precisely and reversibly modulate each of these functions through write-in experiments.
The role requires both the ability to independently drive a research program from start to finish and to collaborate closely with a diverse team of scientists to collect novel datasets that can transform our understanding of the neurobiology of intelligence and consciousness. Experimental work combines large-scale neural recordings, targeted stimulation, and behavioral design, working closely with computational, engineering, and software teams to translate biological insight into a detailed model of the brain that can guide causal perturbation experiments and inform new AI architectures. Title and scope are calibrated to track record.
Successful applicants will focus on one or more of Astera Neuro’s primary research tracks. Background and interest will help determine the best fit among programs aimed at discovering how the primate brain builds a stable model of the physical world, how it generates a model of its own physical and mental states and plans, and how it combines abstract representations of thoughts into new configurations to support complex, flexible behavior.
What You’ll Do ==================
- Design behavioral paradigms (perceptual and cognitive tasks) aligned with the lab’s scientific goals.
- Design and execute large-scale, multi-area neural recording experiments in awake, behaving subjects performing complex perceptual, working-memory, and higher-cognitive tasks, using high-density Neuropixels probes, chronic polymer probe arrays, two-photon imaging, and holographic optogenetics.
- Design and execute write-in (causal perturbation) experiments targeting visual percepts, thoughts, and internal states using model-guided closed-loop stimulation.
- Build and analyze datasets that stitch across sessions, animals, and paradigms to support stable, brain-wide, single-neuron-resolution representations.
- Collaborate across electrophysiology, holography, computational, and engineering teams to keep recording, perturbation, and modeling tightly coupled.
- Mentor research 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.
Who You Are ===============
Required --------------
- PhD with 5-12+ years of experience in neuroscience, cognitive, behavioral, or medical sciences, biology, biomedical engineering, or a related field, or equivalent research experience.
- Hands-on experience with chronic, multi-area, large-scale electrophysiology in awake, behaving animals performing complex cognitive paradigms, including high-density Neuropixels recordings and chronic polymer probe systems.
- Demonstrated ability to lead a systems neuroscience project end to end, from hypothesis and paradigm design through rig development, data collection, analysis, and publication.
- Strong quantitative and computational skills, with fluency in Python and/or MATLAB, modern spike sorting and quality-control pipelines, and analysis of high-dimensional population data.
- Ability to work at close quarters with software engineers, hardware engineers, and computational neuroscientists in a fast-moving, multi-team environment.
- Experience with optogenetic, electrical, or other causal perturbation methods across multiple animal models.
- Experience with closed-loop or real-time experimental control and stimulation.
- Familiarity with neural population dynamics and dynamical-systems modeling.
What We Value =================
- Conviction that the brain’s internal model can be understood in full, and agreement that getting there requires a kind of science no single academic lab can do; we’re 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. What we cannot build, we do not understand.
- Comfort building on shared infrastructure rather than private projects. Recordings and perturbations will be registered onto a common whole-brain functional and anatomical atlas, and datasets are designed to stitch across sessions, animals, and paradigms.
- Care for the animals: the wellbeing of the animals we study, supported by dedicated veterinary and behavioral care staff, is the foundation of both the science and its credibility.
- Commitment to open science. We will release tools, data, and methods, and aim to create a new dynamic of rapid, open exchange in neuroscience.
Additionally Expected at Senior / Principal Level =====================================================
- Experience contributing to or leading large, multi-team programs (academic centers, institutes, foundations, or industry research labs).
- Track record of mentorship and technical leadership.
Why Join Us ===============
Research Scientists 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 neural representation of the compositional code that underlies primates’ remarkable ability to combine abstract thoughts into new configurations, and we view both reading out and writing in thoughts and ideas as central to that goal.
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!
About Astera Institute
Astera Institute is a non-profit that supports science and technology projects.
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