UCL Ear Institute
Research Associate Position
A 3-year postdoctoral research associate position, funded by the BBSRC, is available at the UCL Ear Institute to investigate the neural basis of auditory perception. Specifically, the project will examine the neural activity underlying a listener’s ability to identify signals, such as speech sounds, across varied and noisy listening conditions. Experimental work will include training animals in listening tasks and using state-of-the-art recording techniques to measure the activity of single neurons and populations of neurons in the auditory cortex of freely moving animals, whilst they discriminate speech-like sounds. These methods will be combined with reversible-inactivation methods in trained animals to identify which auditory cortical fields contribute to different aspects of auditory perception. Similar techniques will be used to investigate the conditions under which visual information can help us to “hear better” and to examine neural activity in auditory cortex which might underlies this.
The successful applicant will have a PhD in auditory neuroscience or a related discipline and will have experience in electrophysiological recordings and/or animal psychophysics. They are expected to be proficient in signal processing techniques and computational analysis of multi-electrode data sets.
The Ear Institute (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ear) is a multi-disciplinary facility with the remit of “understanding hearing and fighting deafness”. Facilities at the Ear Institute are world-class, and will enable all of the components of the project to be undertaken to a high level. The laboratory is also affiliated with UCL’s Department of Neuroscience, Pharmacology and Physiology (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/npp/) enabling the successful applicant to become part of UCL’s exceptional neuroscience community.
The position is funded for three years by a BBSRC project grant and is available immediately, with a start date of not later than October 1st. For an informal discussion please contact Dr Jennifer Bizley (email: j.bizley [ à ] ucl.ac.uk)
The closing date for applications is Friday 8th July 2011.
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Dr Jennifer Bizley
Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow
UCL Ear Institute
332 Grays Inn Road
London, WC1E 6BT 07779 148804
www.dBSPL.co.uk www.bizley.co.uk