Want to know if this job is worth applying to?
California, United States
Onsite
Astera is a private foundation on a mission to steer science and technology toward a better future. We believe the coming years will bring an era of unprecedented scientific and technological advancement as exponential progress in AI converges with central advances in other fields to accelerate innovation. This inflection point provides an unparalleled opportunity to fundamentally rethink the institutions, systems, and tools that drive progress. We have committed a $3.5B endowment to that work and fit the form of our support to the function it serves: grants, investments, and in-house research programs. We accept meaningful risk in the research we back and expect some of it to fail because transformative ideas are rarely the ones already proven. Our projects, and the foundation itself, operate like high-velocity startups, with a high performance bar and competitive compensation to match. We are searching for leaders who are compelled by the challenge of driving high-impact change in the way science is funded, conducted, and communicated. You can read more about our mission, vision, and programming at astera.org/vision.
Astera Neuro seeks to understand and engineer consciousness. We believe consciousness is the process by which the brain builds a coherent internal model of the world and the self. We aim to understand this model and to develop the technologies to write experience directly into the brain. By combining large-scale neural recording, causal perturbation, and brain-based AI, we seek to move neuroscience from observing correlates of experience to engineering it. The same tools carry direct therapeutic promise for neurological and psychiatric diseases that alter perception, thought, and sense of self. Because the science and tools required do not yet exist, we are assembling a founding team of neuroscientists, theorists, and engineers to create them. We do high-risk, high-reward science in a well-resourced, collaborative environment with competitive pay, and share everything openly under Astera's Open Science Policy.
Astera Neuro is setting up a human neuroscience initiative to collect, process, and analyze intracranial data at scale. We are hiring human neuroscientists to lead this program, conducting large-scale studies of the compositional representations underlying language, mathematics, perception, and working memory in neurosurgical patients at the single-neuron level, in close collaboration with partner sites around the world.
This role is the human-side complement to Astera Neuro’s primate program. You will design and implement intracranial cognitive tasks suitable for wide deployment, translate primate paradigms into compatible human studies, analyze single-neuron and population recordings from the human brain, and coordinate with clinical collaborators across the world. The work runs end-to-end from conception, paradigm design, data acquisition, and pre-processing, through analysis, publication, and curated open-science data releases. It depends on strong scientific judgment, deep knowledge of the literature, careful experimental discipline, a sense for what is feasible in the human space, and genuine collaboration with outside teams.
We are hiring at multiple levels for this role. At the Scientist level, you will lead well-defined studies with regular guidance. At the Senior Scientist level, you will own research lines end-to-end and manage clinical partnerships. At the Principal Scientist level, you will define the human research roadmap, mentor scientists, and shape how Astera’s animal and human programs fit together. We will calibrate scope and title based on your experience.
Design, implement, and deploy intracranial cognitive paradigms covering language, syntax, semantic learning, mathematical reasoning, perception, and working memory.
Translate primate paradigms into compatible human studies, in close coordination with experimental and computational teams.
Process and analyze single-neuron, multi-unit, and local field potential recordings from the human brain (sEEG, ECoG, microelectrode arrays) at a scale not previously attempted.
Implement advanced computational cognitive-neuroscience methods suited to large-scale datasets, in close coordination with the Astera AI team.
Coordinate and manage clinical partners across the world, including study setup, data-collection visits, and ongoing scientific collaboration.
Manage IRB and regulatory documentation, data-sharing agreements, and cross-site protocol harmonization.
Required:
A PhD, or MD/PhD with 8-12+ years of experience, is expected for this role. Backgrounds in engineering, computational neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, or related fields are all welcome. We value demonstrated skill and relevant experience above credentials.
Hands-on experience with human intracranial electrophysiology (single neuron, sEEG, ECoG, Utah array, or comparable).
Track record, demonstrated by first-author publications, of successfully conducting high-quality science with human intracranial electrophysiology, ideally at the single-neuron level.
Demonstrated ability to design and implement cognitive paradigms in clinical research populations.
Strong quantitative and analytical skills, with fluency in Python and/or MATLAB.
Strong understanding of advanced concepts used for population-level analysis of representations of cognitive variables, in real neurons or neural networks.
Preferred/Nice to Have:
Strong AI and neuroscience background, to help interface between the neuroscience and AI sides of Astera.
Background in cognitive neuroscience of language, syntax, semantic processing, working memory, or mathematical cognition.
Existing collaborations with neurosurgical sites.
Experience translating paradigms across species (rodent / primate / human).
Working proficiency in Mandarin or a major European language, given the lab’s international site network.
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.
Comfort building on shared infrastructure rather than private projects: paradigms, preprocessing, and analysis will be standardized so recordings from different patients, sessions, and sites can be combined, and human and primate results compared directly.
Stewardship of clinical partnerships. Our access to the human brain rests on the trust of patients, surgeons, and neurosurgical monitoring teams, and we’re looking for someone who can earn that trust through clear communication and real presence at partner sites.
Resourcefulness and the ability to self-direct; you scope out what needs to be done, identify the right collaborators, and move forward.
Commitment to open science. We release tools, data, and methods, and aim to create a new dynamic of rapid, open exchange in neuroscience.
Experience managing multi-site clinical research, including IRB submissions and protocol standardization.
History of successful mentorship of scientists or leading clinical research initiatives (Principal level).
Human Neuroscientist at Astera Neuro, focused on what is most distinctively human about the brain: language, mathematics, and the ability to build and manipulate abstract thoughts. We seek to read out the compositional neural code supporting this ability directly from the human brain, in neurosurgical patients recorded during cognition, and to relate it to the codes we are mapping across species. If you want to investigate what is distinctively human about the brain at single-neuron resolution, let’s talk.
Astera Neuro provides a comprehensive benefits package and total compensation that is competitive and commensurate with the level of experience and qualifications.
We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity and inclusion!
