Dear Colleagues,  
 
We are looking for teaching assistants for the Simons Computational Neuroscience Imbizo, a computational neuroscience summer school held in Cape Town, South Africa (https://imbizo.africa/).
 
We are looking for post-doctoral or advanced PhD researchers to join our team as Teaching Assistants (TAs) for the Imbizo in January 2025. Please apply via the link: https://imbizo.africa/ta-application/.

Before you apply, you should have the following documents/information ready:
1) A brief CV (2-4 pages is fine)
2) A short motivational statement about your scientific interests and background, why you would be a good fit, and your favourite topics for teaching tutorials and supervising student projects.
3) Contact details of one referee.
 
The application deadline is April 25, 2024 (20:00 UTC), and the reference letter submission deadline is April 29, 2024 (20:00 UTC). Please notify your referee beforehand to meet the deadline.

About the Imbizo:
The school hosts 28-30 students for an amazing 22 days of lectures, tutorials, projects and forging new friendships. All this takes place on Noordhoek beach, between the mountain and the ocean. It's a spectacular location.

•     Arrival day: Sunday 12 January 2025
•     Imbizo dates: Monday 13 January to Saturday 1 February 2025
•     Departure day: Sunday 2 February 2025

The Imbizo is a special experience, with students being totally immersed in academic, social, touristic and cultural activities, and has resulted in student and TA groups from previous schools becoming very close, personally and scientifically. This is fantastic, as a major goal of the Imbizo project is to help young African researchers grow their academic peer and friend group.
 
About being a TA:

•     Each TA runs one afternoon tutorial in the first week of the school, which they design themselves.
•     Each TA will teach a different topic, which the TA's choose among themselves, to provide students with a broad exposure to problems and methods in computational neuroscience.
•     Each TA is also assigned 5 students to supervise for project work during the last 2 weeks of the school.
•     TAs will be asked to help process student applications.

TAs are integral in helping run the school. In addition to academic support, they foster good social interactions and academic discussions among students, and they help 'shy' students meet faculty. They also act as 'social glue’, helping to notice and support students who may be feeling ill, not fitting in socially, or generally having difficulties.
 
To fulfill these roles, TAs need to be at all school meals and activities.
 
We will also need a little help processing student applications.
 
What we provide:
We cover as direct as possible, economy class tickets to Cape Town, as well as all board and lodging during the school.

We will start assessing applications on May 1, 2024.
A call for student applications will follow soon. We hope to hear from you soon! Let us know if you have any questions.
 
Thanks and regards

Demba Ba, Arif Hamid, Peter E Latham, Spiros Chavlis, and Emma Vaughan
Simons Computational Neuroscience Imbizo Committee 2025
Twitter: @CompNeuroImbizo
email: isicn.imbizo[AT]gmail.com

-- 

Spyridon Chavlis, PhD
Postdoctoral Researcher and Systems Administrator
Poirazi Lab
Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB)
Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH)
Nikolaou Plastira, 100
GR 70013
Heraklion, Crete, Greece

Tel: (+30) 2810 39 1264
Εmail: schavlis@imbb.forth.gr
Webpage: dendrites.gr