Postdoctoral Fellowships, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany (2016)

The Georg-August-University Göttingen, the German Primate Center and the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience are looking to fill four positions of Postdoctoral fellows

The postdoctoral fellows will be associated with the Cognitive Ethology Laboratory (Julia Fischer, www.dpz.eu/de/abteilung/kognitive-ethologie), the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory (Stefan Treue, www.dpz.eu/cnl), including the Sensorimotor Group (Alexander Gail, www.dpz.eu/smg) and the Decision and Awareness Group (Igor Kagan, www.dpz.eu/dag), at the University of Göttingen and the German Primate Center, or the Theoretical Neurophysics Group (Fred Wolf, www.uni-goettingen.de/en/58058.html) at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience.

All positions are at pay grade 13 TV-L, full-time (currently 39, 80 hours per week) for an initial duration of 2 years and are available immediately.

Your project
We are recruiting postdoctoral fellows for an interdisciplinary research project studying social interactions and decision- making in human and non-human primates. For this purpose, a novel experimental platform is to be developed for behavioral (and with the later option of electrophysiological / stimulation) studies of sensorimotor decision-making in cooperative and competitive social interaction settings, across humans and different non-human primate species. We are searching for two postdoctoral fellows with an experimental or engineering background to develop this innovative experimental platform by integrating several technological (e.g., eye-tracking, hand motion tracking, real-time behavior-contingent visual stimuli, etc.) and methodological approaches (e.g., from neurosciences, behavioral biology and psychology) into a single experimental tool. Two postdoctoral fellows with a mathematical or theoretical background are expected to develop a mathematical framework and the computational tools for the analysis of large-scale multimodal data streams to be generated through the platform and from other sources.

Your profile
We are looking for highly motivated, enthusiastic and creative researchers with strong experimental and/or analytical skills. Good command of written and spoken English is a must, German is a plus. The ability to work in an interdisciplinary team and the capacity to supervise students and technical personnel is expected.

Successful candidates for the development of the experimental platform should have a PhD in cognitive science, psychology, behavioral biology, neuroscience or related fields. Demonstrable experience with designing, conducting and analyzing behavioral experiments in humans and/or non-human primates is essential; programming skills and an understanding of hardware and software integration in real-time experimental systems is beneficial; a prior experience in studying social interactions is of additional value.

Successful candidates for the development of computational tools should have a PhD in computational neuroscience, physics, mathematics, informatics, statistics, or related fields. Advanced knowledge of stochastic dynamics, systems and signal theory, as well as excellent computational skills are required. Extensive experience with the analysis of complex data streams is a plus. Ideal candidates will be driven by a genuine interest in theoretical approaches to complex biological systems.

Further details:
http://academicpositions.eu