PhD Student / Postdoc positions at the Dept. of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, The Netherlands, at the Dept. of Neurosciences, Biomedical Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium and at the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research and Center for Integrative Neuroscience, University of Tübingen.
The positions are part of an ERC-Synergy grant RELEVANCE jointly awarded to Profs. de Gelder (Maastricht), Giese (Tübingen), Vogels (KU Leuven)
The project RELEVANCE aims to understand how the brain evolved special structures to process highly relevant social stimuli like bodies and to reveal how social vision sustains adaptive behavior. The project will develop a mechanistic and computational understanding of the visual processing of bodies and interactions through integrating advanced methods from multiple disciplines: psychophysics, Ecog and high-field functional imaging in combination with computer animation, virtual reality and neural stimulation in humans; single unit electrophysiology with causal techniques in monkeys, and development of biologically-Informed deep neural network models that unify the data.
For Maastricht University (http://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/):
The student will be integrated in the research that takes place at the Department for Cognitive Neuroscience and the Maastricht Brain Imaging Center at Maastricht University, which has access to a new MR-lab with 3 Tesla, 7 Tesla and 9.4 Tesla human MRI systems (www.scannexus.nl).
The primary responsibilities of the PhD student will be: 1) to actively participate in the experimental design, analysis (and acquisition) of 7 Tesla functional MRI data; 2) collaborate to the other parts of the research program and 3) writing and publishing of articles.
Requirements:
- Candidates should have a (research) master degree in one of the following disciplines: (Cognitive) Neuroscience, (Biomedical) Engineering, Computer Science or Mathematics.
- In addition to these requirements, candidates should preferably have a theoretical interest in the area of visual perception and experience with scientific programming (Matlab, Python or any other language). Research experience (during the master thesis or research internships) in one or more of the following topics/techniques will be strongly valued: functional MRI acquisition/analysis, machine learning, multivariate pattern recognition.
Additional information
Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology & Neuroscience, Maastricht University, The Netherlands; Brain and Emotion group, Maastricht Brain Imaging Centre (MBIC), Email: b.degelder@maastrichtuniversity.nl, Tel: +31-43-3881802
For KU Leuven (http://www.kuleuven.be/):
The student will be integrated in the research that takes place at the Division of Neurophysiology of the Department of Neurosciences, at KU Leuven, with access to a 3T MRI scanner for large animals, set-ups for single unit recordings and neural perturbation in behaving nonhuman primates, with a state-of-the-art monkey housing facility.
The primary responsibilities of the PhD student will be: 1) to actively participate in the experimental design of recording experiments, and acquisition and analysis of single unit data in fMRI-defined cortical patches of rhesus monkeys, 2) collaborate with the other partners of the research program and 3) writing and publishing of articles.
Requirements:
- Candidates should have a (research) master degree in one of the following disciplines: (Cognitive) Neuroscience, (Biomedical) Engineering, Computer Science or Mathematics.
- In addition to these requirements, candidates should have a strong theoretical interest in the area of visual neuroscience and experience with scientific programming (Matlab, Python or any other language).
Additional information
Laboratorium voor Neuro- en Psychofysiologie, Dpt of Neurosciences, Biomedical Sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium & Leuven Brain Institute, KU Leuven, Belgium. Email: Rufin.Vogels@kuleuven.be
For University of Tübingen (http://www.hih-tuebingen.de/ and https://www.cin.uni-tuebingen.de/)
The successful students / postdocs will be integrated in the research taking place in the Section for Computational Sensomotorics (http://www.compsens.uni-tuebingen.de/), which is part of the Dept. of Cognitive Neurology. The group works on neural modeling, machine learning techniques related to social recognition, computer animation, and human motion modeling, realizing highly-realistic avatars and VR applications for experiments in neuroscience and clinical research. The group is part of the Cybervalley initiative (https://cyber-valley.de/) that links groups related to machine learning and industry applications in Tübingen. Talented students will have the opportunity to pursue a PhD in the International Max Planck Research Schools for ‘Intelligent Systems’ (https://imprs.is.mpg.de/) or for ‘Mechanisms of Mental Function and Dysfunction’ at the Graduate Training Center for Neuroscience (https://www.neuroschool-tuebingen.de/).
The primary responsibilities of the PhD student will be: 1) the development of novel techniques for stimulus generation, including advanced techniques from computer animation and motion tracking and exploiting different technologies and machine learning approaches; 2) development of physiologically-inspired neural network models, including state-of-the-art approaches from computer vision and deep learning. 3) tight collaboration with experimental partners in the project.
Requirements:
- Candidates should have a (research) master degree in one of the following disciplines: (Biomedical) Engineering, Computer Science, (Cognitive) Neuroscience, or Mathematics, or Computer Animation/Visual Effects.
- In addition to these requirements, candidates should have a theoretical interest in the area of visual neuroscience, and experience with scientific programming (Matlab, Python or any other language), as well as basic programing languages such as C++ or Java.
Additional information
Section for Computational Sensomotorics, Dept. for Cognitive Neurology, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research & Centre for Integrative Neurocience, University Clinic Tübingen. Email: martin.giese@uni-tuebingen.de. Web: http://www.compsens.uni-tuebingen.de/ Tel.: (+49) 7071 2989137
For all applications:
Interested candidates should send:
- A letter of motivation
- A detailed CV
- Contact info of at least two references