Professors Henry Abarbanel at UCSD/CTBP and Daniel Margoliash at the University of Chicago seek to hire two postdoctoral fellows in computational and experimental neuroscience for three year terms beginning in Fall, 2009/Winter, 2010.
One position will be located primarily at the University of Chicago within the Margoliash laboratory. The principal effort will be to describe the dynamics of different classes of neurons recorded in brain slice and in vivo in the avian song system. Prior experience conducting intracellular recordings is essential. The postdoctoral fellow located at Chicago will make regular visits to UCSD to work with other members of the collaboration on the development and use of advanced nonlinear dynamical approaches for the analysis of these data. She/he will also participate in "lab meetings" across the two campuses on a frequent basis.
The other position will be primarily located at UCSD within the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics/Institute for Nonlinear Science and will involve the development, numerical exploration, and use of advanced nonlinear dynamical approaches for the analysis of the data collected in Chicago. The postdoctoral fellow located at UCSD will make regular visits to Chicago to work with other members of the collaboration. She/he will also participate in "lab meetings" across the two campuses on a frequent basis.
A goal of the collaborative effort is to identify from experiment and nonlinear dynamical analysis realistic models of neurons in the avian song system, in particular in the adult song production pathway (HVC and RA and brainstem nuclei). Modeling will initially be in software, but transition to hardware implementations is possible. Computations, especially on models of the functional networks of these birdsong nuclei, will be done on local Linux clusters as well as massively parallel machines at the Argonne National Laboratory. There is significant opportunity, then, for advanced scientific computing skills as well.
Please apply directly to habarbanel@ucsd.edu or dan@bigbird.uchicago.edu. Please include a statement of your research interests, two letters of recommendation as well as a bibliography and a CV.