NIH-funded part-time postdoc or software developer position in computational neuroscience

A part-time Postdoc or Software Developer position is available in the Dura-Bernal Lab at the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Health Sciences (Brooklyn, New York). The position will focus on the development and dissemination of NetPyNE, a tool for data-driven multiscale modeling of brain circuits. For more details on the software tool see our eLife publication (https://elifesciences.org/articles/44494) and tool website (www.netpyne.org).

Benefits and conditions:

• Gain research experience and learn cutting edge methods in computational neuroscience: development of neuroscience software tools; large-scale modeling of neuronal cortical circuits to study brain function and disease; and machine learning applied to neuroscience. For more details see Research and Current Collaborations.
• Contribute to NIH- and NSF-funded projects and collaborate with top national and international institutions (Yale, Brown, UCL, EPFL, …).
• Position currently funded by a 5-year NIH grant ending in 2024.
• Part-time position (20 hours / week); may become a full-time position in the future, depending upon funding.
• Possibility of working in person (Brooklyn, NY) or remotely.
• Possibility of working as a salaried employee with benefits package, or as a contractor.
• The position is only available to US-based persons or companies (citizens, permanent residents, or visa holders).

Responsibilities:

• Improve the NetPyNE software tool to ensure its reliability, robustness and reproducibility.
• Collaborate with an external software company (MetaCell LLC) to extend the tool’s graphical user interface (GUI).
• Update the tool’s online documentation and develop interactive tutorials.
• Organize, prepare and teach conference workshops/tutorials and yearly courses to train users.
• Provide ongoing support to neuroscience researchers across the world who use the tool to model different brain regions and phenomena (see www.netpyne.org/models and www.netpyne.org/forum).
• Continue ongoing collaborations with other neuroscience tools and resources.
• Encourage, coordinate and manage open source code contributions from interns, graduate students or researchers (usually online via GitHub: https://github.com/Neurosim-lab/netpyne).

Required:

• MSc (or equivalent degree) in Engineering, Computer Science or related discipline.
• Expertise programming in Python, including tools for scientific computing (numpy, scipy, pandas, etc), with 5+ years of demonstrable experience.
• Experience (3+ years) in collaborative software development as part of a team.
• Experience writing unit tests, debugging code, using profiling tools and refactoring existing code bases to improve maintainability.
• Proficiency with Git/Github and Linux (shell scripting, ssh, etc)
• Experience giving presentations, tutorials and/or product demonstrations.
• Spoken and written English language proficiency

Desired:

• Experience in research/academic environment and/or neuroscience background.
• Experience with the NEURON simulator.
• Experience running parallelized large-scale simulations on supercomputers.
• Experience in data science, data visualization and machine learning.

How to apply:

The application period is now closed.

For questions and future opportunities please email salvador.dura-bernal@downstate.edu

We are committed to creating a diverse workplace, with every member of the team able to thrive both personally and professionally. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment regardless of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.

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