Dear all, Apologies for the cross-posting. We are seeking a researcher interested in establishing themselves as an independent PI under a 2–3 year contract in Portugal, to develop and lead a research line in NeuroAI and Visual Computation at the University of Coimbra. The successful candidate will build an independent program at the intersection of computational neuroscience and artificial intelligence, with a particular focus on visual processing. We are particularly interested in candidates working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and biological vision, including research on diffusion models and generative AI; GANs and large-scale visual generative systems; representation learning and mid-level visual features; image synthesis, transformation, and model interpretability; Computational accounts of object and scene representations; and testing alignment between artificial and biological vision systems. The candidate will have full access to newly acquired local GPU and CPU computational infrastructure, as well as institutional high-performance computing facilities. A central component of the position will involve leveraging human neuroimaging data — particularly fMRI (3T, with potential access to 7T) — to test and constrain computational models of visual representation and generative systems. We are especially interested in researchers aiming to establish an independent research group (seed funding may be available) and who adopt a strong fundamental science perspective grounded in cognitive science and systems neuroscience. The ideal candidate will integrate large-scale modeling approaches with empirical neural data to advance mechanistic accounts of visual cognition. The position offers rich collaborative opportunities with faculty in cognitive neuroscience and perception, including Jorge Almeida, Joana Carvalho, Jason Fischer, Pawel Tacikowski, Robert Whitwell, Zohar Tal, Ceren Battal, and Alfonso Caramazza. The department provides access to 3T MRI facilities (with potential 7T collaborations), TMS (Magstim Super Rapid² with Brainsight neuronavigation), EEG, tDCS, eye tracking, motion tracking, and virtual reality systems. This position is embedded within the major European-funded CogBooster initiative, which aims to establish a permanent and internationally competitive team of cognitive neuroscientists at the Department of Psychology of the University of Coimbra. The current group is highly international and conducts research spanning low- and high-level vision, memory, attention, action, and conceptual processing. Researchers with strong backgrounds in machine learning, computer vision, or computational neuroscience — and a genuine interest in linking artificial systems to biological cognition — are particularly encouraged to apply. If you — or someone you know — might be interested in this opportunity, please feel free to contact me. Best regards, Jorge