The Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) operates one of the most powerful supercomputing infrastructures in Europe and makes it available to researchers at Forschungszentrum Jülich, in Germany and throughout Europe. It is partnering with leading technology providers to co-design hardware architectures and software systems for future supercomputers. The “SimLab Neuroscience” in the “High Performance Computing in Neuroscience” division of JSC provides community-specific support for neuroscientists with respect to complex simulations and data analyses on supercomputers, as well as their methods.

The Virtual Brain (TVB, https://www.thevirtualbrain.org/) is a large-scale brain simulator programmed in Python. With a community of thousands of users around the world, TVB is becoming a validated, popular and standard choice for the simulation of whole brain activity. The objective of the “TVB for High-Performance Computing” (TVB-HPC) project, which is also part of the European “Human Brain Project” (HBP), is to enable large-scale parallelization of simulations by producing a high-level description of models using a domain specific language (DSL). This can be used to automatically generate high-performance parallel code which can be deployed on multiple platforms (e.g., GPUs or CPUs with different architectures).

Join the SimLab Neuroscience to support this development as a

Research scientist specialising in brain modelling on HPC

Your Job:

• Design and implementation of neuroscience models optimized for HPC
• Implementation of a Domain Specific Language for neural mass model specification
• Implementation of parameter fitting, inference and optimization algorithms for neuroscience models
• Analysis of mathematical models
• Benchmarking of simulation tools
• Software documentation and application of established software development practices like unit testing and continuous integration
• Close collaboration with domain scientists in all of these activities

Your Profile:

• University degree in computer sciences or relevant computational science areas like physics, chemistry, biology
• Strong background in computational sciences
• Strong background in mathematics
• Experience with parallel programming or distributed computing is highly desirable
• Experience in programming in C or C++, Python and in using scripting languages commonly used on Unix systems
• Experience with neuroscience simulators is desirable
• Good command of English
• Ability and willingness to work in an international, interdisciplinary and distributed Team

Note that it is not necessary to fulfil all of these requirements in order to be considered for the position.

Our Offer:

• A diverse range of activities in an engaged and experienced team, as well as an interdisciplinary and international work environment
• Excellent research and computing infrastructure of one of the largest Research centres in Europe, ideally situated between the cities of Cologne, Düsseldorf, and Aachen
• The opportunity to become part of a challenging large-scale, multidisciplinary European Research Infrastructure project with more than 100 partners in over 20 countries
• Flexible working hours, child care support, solutions for your individual life situation
• Full-time position with the option of slightly reduced working hours
• Development of your personal strengths through a wide spectrum of advanced training and professional development programs, including English and German language courses,
• HPC technology courses and courses on good scientific practices
• Employment fixed-term for 2 years, with possible longer-term prospects
• Salary and social benefits in conformity with the provisions of the Collective Agreement for the Civil Service (TVöD)

We also welcome applications from disabled persons.

Please apply here.