National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Company Logo National Institutes of Health (NIH Bethesda MD, USA

Lab Manager, Human Neuroscience

  • Full Time
  • Durham, NC, USA
  • Applications have closed

 

Lab Manager, Human Neuroscience (Contractor)

National Institutes Of Neurological Disorders And Stroke, Bethesda, Maryland

 

Position Description:

The Functional Neurosurgery Section of the National Institutes of Neurological Disease and Stroke is seeking a full- time Lab Manager. The Section is dedicated to studying the neurophysiological basis of cognition in human patients. An experienced and well-organized Lab Manager is needed to oversee a structured approach to setting up physiological recordings, hardware maintenance, patient testing, and administrative duties.

The laboratory collects and analyzes voltage time-series data collected from hundreds of independent sensors placed directly on the brain of neurosurgery patients for 1 to 3 weeks. During that time period, lab personnel coordinate with the clinical team to perform patient testing. Patients are tested at their bedside using a laptop with custom written games used to probe memory, attention, neural processing, and more. Once recorded, the data are processed using a custom signal processing pipeline and data structure. The behavioral and physiological data collected from patients is rare and extremely valuable from a scientific and medical perspective, and therefore we strive to be systematic in how we record and processes all data. The hardware and software used to record and process these data are constantly being updated based on the latest technologies and deeper understanding of the data itself. The laboratory already has a full time Data Engineer that oversees the data processing pipeline. As such, we are looking for a professional Lab Manager with outstanding engineering and organizational skills, to oversee and improve the data collection pipeline – including patient testing, physiological recording, and data saving.

 

  • The candidate will be expected to manage several lab responsibilities, including setting up physiological recordings, updating/maintaining recording systems, patient testing, and administrative duties.
  • Setting up the physiological recording includes positioning the recording equipment in the patient’s room, connecting hardware components to externalized leads on the patient, configuring recording software, debugging noise or other recording issues, and communicating with the lab’s Data Engineer to ensure neurophysiological data is in the appropriate format and is of sufficient quality for processing.
  • Updating and maintaining the recording systems includes identifying and integrating new electrodes and recording systems into our pipeline, working with hardware vendors and NIH IT to keep the existing hardware/software systems up to date and functioning properly on the network, and overseeing a checklist that all hardware and data are accounted for once the patient is discharged.
  • Patient testing duties include coordination with the clinical team to identify appropriate testing times, coordination with lab members about who is testing on each day, and training new lab members on all testing procedures.
  • Administrative duties include submitting lab purchases, preparing computers for new members, and coordinating Information Technology requests.

 

The candidate will be expected to become fully versed in the existing procedures for data collection, patient testing, processing, and analysis. This includes a deep understanding of the hardware/software systems used to collect and store the data, how these systems are set up in the patient’s room, and how to debug these systems if issues arise. Once trained, the candidate is expected to contribute to the shared lab responsibilities of data collection and data processing. There will be opportunities to contribute to scientific analysis if the candidate is interested.

 

Qualifications:

  • An ideal candidate would have a MS or PhD in neuroscience or engineering, with experience in single-unit recordings from awake and behaving animals or humans.
  • We are interested in candidates who are seeking a long-term commitment.

 

To Apply:

Applicants should submit a current CV to Kareem Zaghloul at: zaghloulka@mail.nih.gov with subject heading: Lab Manager in Human Neuroscience – OITE.

The NIH and HHS are dedicated to building a diverse community in their training and employment programs.

 

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