RESEARCHER IN SYSTEMS NEUROSCIENCES 

About the position

We announce a two-year extendable position as a researcher Charlotte Boccara’s group Systems Neuroscience and Sleep at the Norwegian Centre for Molecular Medicine (www.boccaralab.com). The position is part of the new ERC project SleepCog. It focuses on developing methods in animal models (and implement them) to investigate the role of sleep in healthy cognitive development. 

Boccara Lab: https://boccaralab.com/, https://www.med.uio.no/ncmm/english/groups/boccaragroup/

Work tasks

The successful candidate will develop and implement new in vivo freely-behaving recordings and optogenetics methods in rodent pups. Our overarching goal is to elucidate the computational mechanisms at play during developmental sleep. The candidate will need to record and decode neural activity from multiple brain areas in freely behaving pups, while they are performing behavioural task and while they are sleeping. A specific emphasis for this position will be put on developing methods to assess cognitive development in rodent pups as young as 8 days old – a wish is for the candidate to propose methods to specifically assess higher cognitive functions.

Specific tasks:

• Develop electrophysiological and behavioural tools to infer higher cognitive functions in rodent pups.
• Participate to the development of methods to impair development sleep (including but not limited to optogenetics).
• Participate to the development of telemetric recording methods in rodent pups.
• Supervise students and other lab members in designing and conducting electrophysiology experiments, including data analyses.
• Train new lab members in surgery, electrophysiology and data-analyses techniques.
• Help with labwork organisation.

Qualification requirements 

• Applicants must hold a degree equivalent to a Norwegian doctoral degree in Neurosciences or a related discipline for more than 2 years. (senior position)
• Strong neuroscience background accomplishments demonstrated by publications in peer-reviewed journals.
• Strong experience with in vivo electrophysiology in rodents including device buildings, surgical procedures, freely-behaving recording procedures, signal processing and data analyses.
• FELASA certificate (or equivalent personal license to conduct animal experiments) is required or must be obtained within 2 months of starting the position.
• Strong Experience with neuroscience data analyses is wished – especially with sleep oscillations and multi-units activity.
• Fluent oral and written English communication skills 
• Python, Matlab, R or other relevant programming language skills
• Experience in the following will also count in the assessment of the applicants: optogenetics computational and statistical methods for analysis; rodent behaviour, histology methods, sleep scoring, neurodevelopment as well as rodent genetic editing, viral and neurodevelopment tools, engineering, electronics, PCB design.

Personal skills 

• Strong motivation.
• Ability to integrate and collaborate within a cross-disciplinary environment.
• Organization skills.
• Ability to work independently and take initiatives.
• Clarity in communication.
• Ability (and interest) in supervising students and staff

We offer

• Salary 575 400 - 679 700  NOK per annum depending on qualification in a position as researcher (position code 1109). A 6-month trial period will be applied.
• Generous pension arrangements 
• Attractive welfare benefits
• A friendly and supportive environment ideal for learning new methods
• Oslo’s family-friendly environment with its rich opportunities for culture and outdoor activities

How to apply

Apply directly on JobNorge:

The application must include:

• cover letter describing research experience, interests and statement of motivation
• CV (summarizing education, positions and academic work including list of publications)
• copies of educational certificates (academic transcripts only)
• list of 2-3 professional references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail and phone number)

Application with attachments must be submitted via our online recruitment system. Please note that all documentation must be in English.

Formal regulations

According to the Norwegian Freedom of Information Act (Offentleglova) information about the applicant may be included in the public applicant list, also in cases where the applicant has requested non-disclosure.

Inclusion and diversity are a strength. The University of Oslo has a personnel policy objective of achieving a balanced gender composition. Furthermore, we want employees with diverse professional expertise, life experience and perspectives.

If there are qualified applicants with disabilities, employment gaps or immigrant background, we will invite at least one applicant from each of these categories to an interview.

Contactinformation

For further information, please contact Dr. Boccara charlotte.boccara@ncmm.uio.no . 

For technical questions about the application process please contact Nina Modahl (ninam@ncmm.uio.no).