UNIV - Research Associate - College of Health Professions, Department of Health Sciences and Research

Job Description Summary

MUSC’s College of Health Professions seeks a highly motivated Research Associate to support NIH-funded neuroimaging research on neurodegenerative diseases and aging-related brain changes. Responsibilities include overseeing data acquisition and quality control, managing data sharing and curation, conducting image analyses, and contributing to manuscripts and grant submissions. Preferred qualifications include intermediate-to-advanced programming skills, experience independently conducting and troubleshooting neuroimaging analyses, and strong communication skills.

Entity

Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC - Univ)

Worker Type

Employee

Worker Sub-Type

Faculty

Cost Center

CC000222 CHP - HS&R Admin

Pay Rate Type

Salary

Pay Grade

University-00

Pay Range

0.00 - 0.00 - 0.000

Scheduled Weekly Hours

40

Work Shift

Job Description

MUSC’s College of Health Professions seeks a highly motivated Research Associate to join a multidisciplinary neuroimaging research team of faculty investigators, clinicians, data scientists, trainees, and national and international collaborators. We conduct NIH-funded research focused on the early detection, prediction, and characterization of neurodegenerative diseases and aging-related brain changes through advanced diffusion MRI, fMRI, MR Spectroscopy, and PET imaging. The Research Associate will be primarily responsible for supervising data acquisition, ensuring data quality control, managing data sharing and curation, conducting image analysis, and contributing to manuscript and grant submissions.

Preferred qualifications include intermediate-to-advanced programming skills, the ability to independently conduct, rigorously document, and troubleshoot neuroimaging analyses using established analysis pipelines and software, and strong oral and written communication skills. Projects will include:

• Advanced diffusion MRI of brain aging and preclinical Alzheimer’s disease (R01AG
  054159, PI Benitez, Co-Is Jensen, Chen, and Devignes)
• Structural and functional changes following non-invasive brain stimulation for Mild Cognitive Impairment (R01AG
  081237, PI Benitez; K23AG
  090691, PI Aghamoosa)
• Data from related projects and collaborations, including normative modeling of diffusion MRI (PI Chen), diffusion and functional MRI monitoring of therapy response in 3xTg-AD mice (R01AG
  057602, PI Jensen), olfaction-related changes in brain aging (R01DC
  019078, PI Schlosser, Co-I Benitez), digital health outcomes from non-invasive brain stimulation trials (PI Aghamoosa), and blood-based biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease in the context of cannabis use in aging (K24AG
  088840, PI Benitez).

• Oversee and support acquisition of multimodal neuroimaging data, including diffusion MRI, functional MRI (fMRI), MR spectroscopy (MRS), and PET imaging, in accordance with study protocols and standardized procedures.
• Monitor imaging data acquisition and perform rigorous quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) to identify acquisition artifacts, protocol deviations, and other data quality concerns.
• Independently conduct, document, and troubleshoot neuroimaging analyses using established software, pipelines, and scientific programming tools.
• Develop, adapt, and implement reproducible scripts and workflows for image preprocessing, processing, quality control, statistical analysis, and visualization.
• Maintain detailed documentation of analytic methods, processing decisions, quality-control procedures, and results to promote scientific rigor and reproducibility.
• Conduct preliminary quantitative analyses integrating neuroimaging data with cognitive, clinical, behavioral, biomarker, and other research data.
• Evaluate emerging neuroimaging and computational…