The Cognitive & Systems Neuroscience group is seeking a highly qualified and motivated assistant professor to conduct collaborative research and teaching in Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience.

What are you going to do?

Current research of the Cognitive & Systems Neuroscience group focuses on neural mechanisms of perception, multisensory integration, interactions between sensory and memory systems and conscious representation. These topics are addressed using a variety of methods, such as ensemble recordings in task-performing subjects, optogenetics, computational modelling and advanced analysis of neural data. You will conduct studies on ensemble behavior and population coding during perceptual and cognitive operations using 2-photon imaging, optogenetic and related optical techniques, thereby closely interacting with other team members as well as engaging in external collaborations.

You are:

• motivated to pursue neuronal optical imaging and interventional techniques for studying collective neuronal behavior during active perception and behavioral decision-making, thereby contributing to test representational theories of consciousness. In addition to Calcium imaging, other techniques fitting this profile are imaging using genetically encoded voltage indicators (GEVIs) and all-optical neurophysiology using holographic photostimulation to manipulate specific cell assemblies;
• expected to be active in acquiring grants in this research area, publish in high-level journals, present work at leading conferences, supervise junior scientists and work closely together with group members specialized in electrophysiology, optogenetics, computational modelling and animal behavior;
• expected to dedicate part of your time to teaching and coordination activities within the Bachelor curriculi Psychobiology and/or Biomedical Sciences and the Master curriculum Biomedical Sciences (track: Cognitive Neurobiology and Clinical Neurophysiology);
• further objectives of this position are to support and develop data analytics (mostly in Matlab/Python) and exchange of data and analytics with collaborating labs.

You have:

• a PhD degree preferably in systems neuroscience or related field, with a specialization in optical neuroscience techniques;
• significant experimental experience in the field of the neuroscience of perception and sensory cortical processing, animal behavior, neural data analytics and/or computational neuroscience, as testified by outstanding publications;
• strong quantitative and programming skills and demonstrable affinity with theoretical neuroscience and neural theories of perception and consciousness;
• experience with academic teaching in the subject field;
• fluency and excellent communication in English, both written and spoken;

You should be able to teach in the Dutch language after several years of employment. In due course, you are expected to sculpt a vision for your future research.

Within the Faculty of Science, newly appointed Assistant Professors follow a didactic training trajectory, which should lead up to completion of a certificate qualifying yourself for academic teaching (basiskwalificatie onderwijs, BKO) within two years.

SILS expects its staff to acquire sufficient fluency in the Dutch language within three years of the appointment.

We offer a temporary contract for 38 hours a week, preferably starting on 1May 2021, for the duration of 24 months. A permanent contract subsequently follows if we assess your performance positively.

The salary, depending on relevant work experience before the beginning of the employment contract, will be between €3,746 to € 5,127 (scale 11) gross per month, based on a fulltime contract (38 hours a week). This is exclusive 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus. A favourable tax agreement, the ‘30% ruling’, may apply to non-Dutch applicants. The Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities is applicable.

Are you curious about our extensive package of secondary employment benefits like our excellent opportunities for study and development? Take a look at Working at the Faculty of Science.  

University of Amsterdam

With over 5,000 employees, 30,000 students and a budget of more than 600 million euros, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is an intellectual hub within the Netherlands. Teaching and research at the UvA are conducted within seven faculties: Humanities, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Economics and Business, Law, Science, Medicine and Dentistry. Housed on four city campuses in or near the heart of Amsterdam, where disciplines come together and interact, the faculties have close links with thousands of researchers and hundreds of institutions at home and abroad.  

The UvA’s students and employees are independent thinkers, competent rebels who dare to question dogmas and aren’t satisfied with easy answers and standard solutions. To work at the UvA is to work in an independent, creative, innovative and international climate characterised by an open atmosphere and a genuine engagement with the city of Amsterdam and society.

Faculty of Science - Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences

The Faculty of Science has a student body of around 7,000, as well as 1,600 members of staff working in education, research or support services. Researchers and students at the Faculty of Science are fascinated by every aspect of how the world works, be it elementary particles, the birth of the universe or the functioning of the brain.

The Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences (SILS) is an institute that belongs to the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). Its approximately 230 scientists and staff members work in 16 research groups that perform excellent research, centred on four themes:

1. Green Life Sciences
2. Cell & Systems Biology
3. Neurosciences
4. Microbiology