DEADLINE EXTENDED: April 11th, 2024
Our laboratory is interested in understanding the neural circuits underlying complex social behaviors, in health and disease, using rodents as an animal model system. We are offering one PhD-holding position for a Computational/Theoretical Neuroscientist at postdoctoral level to conduct research activities in modelling and simulation of reward modulated prosocial behavior and decision-making. The project aims to uncover the computational and/or mechanistic bases of prosociality at the behavioral and circuit levels. Tasks will be based on empirical observations and work at the interface between experimentation and theory, the goal is to investigate prosocial decision-making, employing models at different levels of granularity: from very abstract reinforcement learning models to detailed biophysical models.
Duration: uncertain term employment contract. The contract’s maximum foreseen duration is 2.9 years, never going beyond the project’s end date.
Team – The selected candidate will join the Neural Circuits of Social Behavior Lab, coordinated by Prof. Cristina Márquez, and in collaboration with Dr. Renato Duarte, at the CNC-Center for Neuroscience and Cellular Biology, UC-Biotech, Cantanhede, Portugal, under the European project DYNABrain. Check our previous work and publications here.
Your responsabilities
- Develop, test and deploy Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL) models based on TD-Learning and/or Q-Learning, as well as corresponding environments and tasks;
- Explore MARL models and environments at different degrees of complexity (from discrete time and space to continuous control systems) to model animal behavior in dryadic social interaction settings;
- Develop neural population models that incorporate reward-modulation and capture the dynamics of multiple interacting sub-cortical nuclei, engaged in a social decision-making task.
Your competences
- Curious, prone to creative problem-solving and highly motivated to work in an interdisciplinary and diverse team;
- Ethical and open research conduct;
- PhD in Computational/Theoretical Neuroscience, Computer Science or Physics (specializing in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence or Biophysics) or other strongly analytical fields;
- Documented experience with Reinforcement Learning algorithms and Artificial Neural Networks;
- Experience in extensive programming and scientific software development;
- Strongly desired (although not required): previous experience interfacing deep behavioral phenotyping with neural activity dynamics;
- Strongly desired: proven academic interest in Social Neuroscience/Systems Neuroscience or related fields;
- Previous professional experience in international laboratories as researcher;
- Strong written and oral communications skills in English.
We offer
- An enthusiastic, collaborative and interdisciplinary research group;
- Mentorship and support to build your own academic identity and visibility;
- Top-level, innovative research on a new and exciting research field;
- Access to state-of-the-art methods and professional research infrastructure;
- Integration into the CNC research community;
- Open and transparent science;
- Remuneration level 35, in accordance with Portuguese guidelines (2 403,37 € gross/month for an exclusive basis work contract) for the duration of the project;
- Full time working contract, with social security and retirement benefits;
- Yearly economic support for attending courses and conferences.
Deadline for applications: April 1st, 2024, 23:59 (WET)