Are you passionate about investigating how human skeletal muscles change their biological structure in response to injury, training and robot-interaction? Are you interested in contributing to developing breakthrough rehabilitation robotics technologies for improving human movement?

The Neuromechanical Modeling and Engineering Lab (http://bit.ly/NMLab) is seeking for an outstanding post-doctoral fellow to work within the ERC project INTERACT. You will join an international team working on a high-gain/high-risk project at the frontiers of neurophysiology, biomechanics and robotics (http://bit.ly/NMLTube).

The opening:

Neurological injuries such as stroke leave millions of people disabled worldwide every year. Motor improvement is promoted via physical training with appropriate stimuli to the nervous system and the musculoskeletal system. If neuro-rehabilitation robots could be controlled to generate optimal stimuli to the body, a new era in neurorehabilitation would begin!

This post-doc opening focuses on the experimental study of skeletal muscle adaptation and remodeling in response to load and strain across large time scales, e.g., multiple weeks. The successful candidate will employ multi-scale measuring techniques to investigate changes in muscle activation, fascicle length, pennation angle, volume, and force-generating capacity (e.g., torque and stiffness). This will involve the combined use of imaging (i.e., ultrasound, MRI), dynamometry and electromyography techniques

• Performing multi-week muscle training using dynamometry and experience in conducting longitudinal (i.e., 16 weeks) experiments.
• Ultrasound-based and MRI-based imaging of muscles to quantify muscle structure (e.g., fascicle length, pennation angle, volume).
• Obtaining experimental data using dynamometry and electromyography.
• Interest (and courage) in performing ground-breaking science to go beyond current knowledge boundaries.
• Coordinating undergraduate and graduate students.
• Proficient in written and oral English.

Desired skills:

• Experience in working with ultrasound-based imaging to measure skeletal muscle structural and architectural features (i.e., fascicle length, pennation angle).
• Experience in working with MRI-based imaging of skeletal muscles (i.e., muscle segmentation, muscle volume computation)
• Experience with dynamometry to measure muscle force-generating capacity across different activations, lengths and contraction speeds.
• Interpersonal and organizational skills, motivation, and communication (oral and written) ability.

We offer a position with a generous allowance:

• Gross salary between € 3.408 and €4.474 per month depending on experience and qualifications.
• A full-time 2-year position with 30% tax ruling option and a solid pension scheme.
• A holiday allowance of 8% of the gross annual salary and a year-end bonus of 8.3%;
• Professional and personal development programs.
• Access to Neuromechanics and Wearable Robotics Labs outstanding facilities.
• Proximity to Enschede, a mid-size city with a large social offer, immersed in the nature of the Twente region.
• Fun work atmosphere with social lab retreats.