Research Scientist, -Optical Memory

Company Overview

Astera Neuro, part of the Astera Institute, is building the tools to decipher and ultimately write the neural codes behind perception, thought, behavior, and internal state. Since these tools don't yet exist, we're assembling a founding team of neuroscientists, computational scientists, and engineers to build them (hardware, software, and methods) and use them to study neural activity at unprecedented scale, with direct relevance to neurological and psychiatric disease.

We do high-risk, high-reward science in a well-resourced, collaborative environment with competitive pay, and share our work openly under Astera's Open Science Policy.

We’re hiring a PhD-level scientist to join Astera Neuro’s rodent neuroscience team. Your initial assignment is to read, write, and perturb the content of working memory in mouse cortex at single-cell resolution.

The ideal candidate is an experimentalist who can carry the work end-to‑end. You can design a working‑memory task in the morning, run a closed‑loop holographic write‑in on the rig in the afternoon, and write the population‑analysis pipeline that evening. You want institutional support and the freedom to move fast on a problem that matters.

• Design and iterate a head‑fixed mouse working‑memory task, and get animals performing it reliably.
• Run two‑photon holographic photostimulation experiments: read population activity during the task, then write in and perturb the held representation at single‑cell resolution.
• Run holographic targeting, power calibration, and closed‑loop stimulation on the all‑optical rig, working with our optics engineering team.
• Lead computational analysis of large‑scale neural population data, including dimensionality reduction, population decoding, GLMs, and circuit‑level inference.
• Set the viral and transgenic expression strategy, including soma‑targeted ChRmine and GCaMP.
• Perform mouse survival surgery: stereotaxic viral injection, chronic cranial‑window implantation, and headbar installation.
• Mentor research associates and technicians and, at the senior or principal level, more junior scientists; contribute to hiring, onboarding, and lab culture.
• Contribute to publications, talks, open data and tooling releases, and engagement with the broader scientific community.

• PhD with 0-4 years of experience in neuroscience, bioengineering, physics, or a related field, or equivalent research experience. We value demonstrated skill and relevant experience above credentials.
• Hands‑on mouse survival surgery experience: chronic cranial windows, headbars, and stereotaxic injections.
• PhD in neuroscience, bioengineering, physics, or a related field. Equivalent demonstrated expertise will also be considered.
• Hands‑on experience with in vivo two‑photon calcium imaging and/or holographic (SLM‑based) optogenetics in rodents.
• Practical experience with two‑photon systems: optical alignment, system characterization, and in vivo use.
• Proficiency in scientific computing for neural‑data analysis;
  Python and/or MATLAB, with Suite2p, Ca Im An , or comparable pipelines.

• Experience with head‑fixed rodent behavior and task design; closed‑loop and real‑time experiments.
• Prior systems neuroscience research in cortex, working memory, decision‑making, or motor/premotor circuits.
• Experience with ultrafast pulsed lasers (Ti:Sapphire, fiber) and nonlinear optics.
• Two‑photon optogenetics (SLM‑based holography, temporal focusing, or spiral‑scanning photostimulation); soma‑targeted opsins such as ChRmine.

• Conviction that the brain’s internal model can be understood in full, and that getting there requires a kind of science no single academic lab can do; we’re betting on scale, deep collaboration across science and engineering, and open sharing of ideas in a full‑stack environment.
• Willingness to be held to an engineering standard. Our decisive tests are write‑in experiments: constructing a specific percept, thought, or internal state, not merely decoding one. What we cannot build, we do not understand.
• Comfort building on shared infrastructure rather than private projects; rigs, surgical…