[visionlist] fully funded PhD positions

[Martin Vinck]

Apologies for cross-posting:

The laboratory of Dr. Martin Vinck at the Ernst Struengmann Institute for
Neuroscience in Cooperation with Max Planck Society
<http://www.esi-frankfurt.de/esi-frankfurt/>is seeking multiple candidates
for computational neuroscience Ph.D. positions to be filled in Spring/Early
Summer 2019. Positions are fully funded. These positions encompass
following projects:

1) Theoretical and data-analytical approaches to population coding in the
nervous system. These include:

   - Mathematical approaches to understand the relationship between rate
   and temporal coding.
   - Development of unsupervised machine learning techniques to study
   neuronal patterns in high-dimensional state-spaces, with an emphasis on
   temporal sequencies in neural activity. This work builds further on our
   recent Plos Computational Biology paper.
   <https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006283>
   - Study of state-space trajectories on short time-scales.

2) Study of travelling wave patterns from electrode arrays. The goal here
is to detect different kinds of spatio-temporal travelling wave patterns
and understand how they relate to behavior and sensory stimulation.

3) The study of predictive coding using deep learning network models. These
projects include:

   - Use of deep learning models for predictive coding models, and
   optimization of learning strategies in unsupervised learning models.
   - Predicting features of neural activity from these models.

4) Development of algorithms and open-source platform for efficient
analysis of high-dimensional neural datasets on high-performance computing
clusters and GPUs in Julia or Python. The focus is on the extraction of
network correlation measures in high-dimensional spiking datasets, and the
development of new tools to quantify Granger-causality and spike-field
coherence.

PhD students will work together with experimental neuroscientists in our
laboratory and apply methods and models on experimental datasets from
primate and rodent animal models. Experiments in the laboratory include
multi-areal electrophysiology with sillicon probes together with
optogenetics. It is also possible for PhD students to participate actively
in these experiments.

We are primarily looking for students with training in a quantitative
discipline (physics, electrical or biomedical engineering, computer
science, mathematics, etc.), or neuroscientists with additional
quantitative training. Some experience with neuroscience, or a proven
interest in neuroscience, is a pre, but not a must.

Frankfurt is an internationally oriented city with many prestigious
neuroscience institutes in the neighbourhood, e.g. the Max Planck Institute
for Brain Research  <http://brain.mpg.de/home.html>, the FIAS
<https://fias.institute/> and the Interdisciplinary Center for Neuroscience
<https://www.izn-frankfurt.de/en/>.

Major collaborator on this project is Dr. Francesco Battaglia from the
Donders Centre, Nijmegen.
------------------------------

Interested candidates are invited to send their application materials in
electronic form (PDF format) to martin.vinck at esi-frankfurt.de

Applications should contain a letter of intent, a detailed curriculum
vitae, lists of university courses completed with marks obtained, and the
names of at least two scientists who can give references (or at least two
reference letters). Please indicate which projects are of your core
interest. First deadline is 15th of April. The advertisement will be valid
until positions are filled.
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