The Translational Neuromodeling Unit (TNU) headed by Prof. Klaas Enno
Stephan is
a newly founded division of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the
University of Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH
Zurich).
Its mission is to translate advances in computational neuroscience into
clinically useful diagnostic tools. To this end, the TNU brings together
modellers, experimentalists and clinicians who jointly develop mathematical
models of brain (dys)function and evaluate their diagnostic use for
psychiatry
and neurology in patient studies. We have access to a wide range of
experimental
facilities - including fMRI (3T & 7T), EEG, TMS, eye tracking - and are
presently setting up a research clinic for patient studies. For more
information, see
http://www.translationalneuromodeling.org.
The TNU invites applications for a doctoral student (PhD) position
(duration 3
years).
The topic concerns the development of decision-making experiments and
mathematical models to answer specific clinical questions in psychiatric
settings, such as the origin of the comorbidity between depression and
anxiety,
the length of an acute episode or predicting relapse in addiction.
The project will first focus on developing decision-making models and
experiments appropriate to the clinical question. The models will be
psychologically and neurobiologically informed to maximize the chances of
characterizing the relevant "hidden" neural processes from behavior, eye
movements and imaging data. The successful applicant will primarily develop
these models and conduct the experiments in both clinical and non-clinical
populations.
Essential qualifications and interests include both strong interests in
psychopathology and mathematics or statistics. The applicant has
- Either a mathematical background (e.g., a degree in engineering,
physics,
computer science, statistics, mathematical psychology, mathematical
biology,
machine learning or computational neuroscience) and a strong interest in
psychopathology
- Or a background in psychopathology (e.g. a degree in clinical
psychology,
experimental psychology, medicine, public health, neuroscience or
epidemiology) and strong interest in mathematical methods
Further essential qualifications are strong programming skills, an
enjoyment of
inter-disciplinary interactions with experimentalists and clinicians, a
"team
player" attitude, and an interest in biomedical questions and real-world
applications of computational models.
Additionally, the ideal applicant has experience with
- Bayesian methods, and/or machine learning,
- conducting or analyzing experimental data.
The position is available immediately. Interested students should submit
their
applications (incl. CV, names of at least two referees, and a brief
letter of
motivation outlining their interests and explaining why they meet the above
requirements) to Quentin Huys (tnu-jobs(a)biomed.ee.ethz.ch). Applications
will be
considered until the position has been filled.