The Halassa lab, in collaboration with the Fiete lab, at MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences is seeking to fill one postdoctoral position at the interface of computational systems neuroscience and theoretical neuroscience. Specifically, the work will involve analyzing neural recordings and constructing neural models of prefrontal circuit operations during decision making, working memory and perceptual inference. The postdoctoral researcher will be involved in joint- and individual-lab projects. The researcher will also have the opportunity to participate in several ongoing department- and institution-wide initiatives such as the Center for Brains Minds and Machines (https://cbmm.mit.edu/), and the MIT Quest for Intelligence (https://quest.mit.edu/). The Halassa lab combines well-controlled, parametric behavioral tasks in multiple species (rodents, tree shrews and marmosets) with high-density multi-site electrophysiological recordings of neural ensembles and circuit-specific optical perturbation tools. Recent studies have revealed novel roles of subcortical structures such as the thalamus in regulating prefrontal activity, and thereby, its engagement in working memory and selective attention (e.g. Schmitt et al., 2017 Nature; Rikhye et al., 2018 Nature Neuroscience). The Fiete lab builds theories and models of neural circuit plasticity, dynamics, coding, and function, and performs quantitative analysis of neural data to test models of circuit function. This is an excellent opportunity for a theoretically inclined candidate who would like to work closely with neural data. An ideal candidate will have some familiarity with neuroscience and a background in a relevant quantitative discipline, such as theoretical or computational neuroscience, physics, engineering, or mathematics. Knowledge and experience in spike train analysis and building neural models are a plus. Please contact Mike Halassa: mhalassa@mit.edu<mailto:mhalassa@mit.edu> or Ila Fiete: fiete@mit.edu<mailto:fiete@mit.edu>. See also: halassalab.mit.edu<http://halassalab.mit.edu>, http://clm.utexas.edu/fietelab/