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JOB DESCRIPTION FOR JOHNS HOPKINS fMRI RESEARCH ASSOCIATE/POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW

The Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine is offering a fulltime position as Postdoctoral Research Fellow or Research Associate (commensurate with training and research background) starting July 1, 2012. The expectation is that the annual contract will be renewed for a total of at least three years. The primary responsibility of the fellow/research associate will be participation in the design and implementation of new clinical functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigms, as well as offline analysis of BOLD, DTI and perfusion imaging data collected on our Siemens 3T Trio MRI system at the Johns Hopkins Hospital as part of a comprehensive clinical brain tumor physiologic MR imaging program. Johns Hopkins Hospital, located in Baltimore, Maryland, is a major international referral center, and our clinical fMRI program benefits from referrals from one of the largest brain tumor centers in the world.

Partly in collaboration with Siemens, software development and optimization for both clinical and research fMRI will also be accomplished. The Fellow/Research Associate is expected to be actively involved in the administration of the paradigms, patient training and testing, collection of fMRI and DTI data, performance of data quality control analysis, and prompt offline processing of the data for same day export to PACS and neuronavigation systems. Paradigm design and optimization will be performed in conjunction with a team of experienced neuroradiologists who will also be involved in the interpretation and postprocessing of the data for delivery of results to referring neurosurgeons. Our fMRI team includes several “supertechs” in addition to three neuroradiologists. Experience with fMRI analysis software packages (particularly AFNI [required], although additional experience with SPM8 would also be useful) and MATLAB is essential, and prior fMRI & image processing experience is an absolute requirement. Strong computer programming skills are highly desirable as well, particularly in C/C++ or comparable languages. The successful candidate will hold a Masters or PhD degree in a neuroscience, functional imaging or computer science related field and will be able to expand our existing clinical fMRI program by further developing and optimizing fMRI paradigms on the existing software platform on our Siemens 3T scanner, which includes an integrated AFNI-based clinical fMRI package provided by Prism Clinical Imaging.

Excellent opportunities for research related to clinical outcomes, paradigm development and analysis optimization, and most importantly clinical validation of techniques, will also be present. The successful candidate will participate in ongoing funded research projects related to BOLD cerebrovascular reactivity mapping and assessment of neurovascular uncoupling, as well as brain plasticity.

Current clinical applications of fMRI and DTI at the Johns Hopkins Hospital include presurgical mapping of eloquent cortex in patients with brain tumors and presurgical planning in patients with epilepsy. Design of a variety of clinically useful sensorimotor, language, memory and visual activation paradigms suitable for a wide range of patient functional levels and design of accurate semiautomated fMRI and DTI processing methods, as well as development and implementation of sophisticated neurobehavioral testing and monitoring methods, will be the eventual goals. Collection of normative data during paradigm development will also be necessary. Additional research opportunities related to resting state BOLD and functional connectivity MR imaging in the context of brain tumor imaging will also be present.

The Johns Hopkins University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer, and encourages applications from qualified women and minority candidates. Hiring is contingent upon eligibility to work in the State of Maryland.