Research Scientist/Engineer, Deep Brain Two Photon Imaging and Optogenetics

Astera is a private foundation on a mission to steer science and technology toward a better future. We believe the coming years will bring an era of unprecedented scientific and technological advancement as exponential progress in AI converges with central advances in other fields to accelerate innovation. This inflection point provides an unparalleled opportunity to fundamentally rethink the institutions, systems, and tools that drive progress. We have committed a $3.5B endowment to that work and fit the form of our support to the function it serves: grants, investments, and in-house research programs. We accept meaningful risk in the research we back and expect some of it to fail because transformative ideas are rarely the ones already proven. Our projects, and the foundation itself, operate like high-velocity startups, with a high performance bar and competitive compensation to match. We are searching for leaders who are compelled by the challenge of driving high-impact change in the way science is funded, conducted, and communicated. You can read more about our mission, vision, and programming at astera.org/vision.

Astera Neuro seeks to understand and engineer consciousness. We believe consciousness is the process by which the brain builds a coherent internal model of the world and the self. We aim to understand this model and to develop the technologies to write experience directly into the brain. By combining large-scale neural recording, causal perturbation, and brain-based AI, we seek to move neuroscience from observing correlates of experience to engineering it. The same tools carry direct therapeutic promise for neurological and psychiatric diseases that alter perception, thought, and sense of self. Because the science and tools required do not yet exist, we are assembling a founding team of neuroscientists, theorists, and engineers to create them. We do high-risk, high-reward science in a well-resourced, collaborative environment with competitive pay, and share everything openly under Astera's Open Science Policy.

We're hiring a PhD-level scientist/engineer to join Astera Neuro's neuroscience team, working to read, write, and perturb the contents of cognition in the primate brain at single-cell resolution. Astera Neuro is Astera's initiative to decode how patterns of neural activity become the thoughts, perceptions, and memories of conscious experience. We work from the hypothesis that the brain uses a compositional architecture, and we aim to move neuroscience from observation to engineering by reading from and writing to neural circuits at scale.

Your initial assignment is to develop and optimize an optical implant for high resolution two photon imaging and optogenetics deep in the brain. While parallel Astera efforts target surface structures with conventional cranial windows, many key structures for cognition sit in brain sulci, millimeters below the surface. You'll oversee the full toolkit development: optimizing the optics (GRIN lenses, microprisms, micro-objectives), the surgical implantation procedure, and integration with the two photon holographic microscope. The work spans optical engineering to systems and cognitive neuroscience.

The ideal candidate is an experimentalist who can carry the work end-to-end: designing a GRIN lens system in the morning, running a closed-loop holographic write-in on the rig in the afternoon, and writing the population-analysis pipeline that evening. You want institutional support and the freedom to move fast on a problem that matters.

• Design and iterate GRIN lens and/or microprism assembly for deep brain imaging in the primate brain, with early optimization in rodents.

• Develop and help execute the surgical implantation procedure

• Run two-photon imaging and holographic photostimulation experiments: read population activity during the task, then write in and perturb the held representation at single-cell resolution.

• Run holographic targeting, power calibration, and closed-loop stimulation on the all-optical rig, working with our optics engineering team.

• Lead computational analysis of large-scale neural population data, including dimensionality reduction, population decoding, GLMs, and circuit-level inference.

• Set the viral and transgenic expression strategy, including soma-targeted opsin and GCaMP.

• Perform rodent survival surgery for the initial validation: stereotaxic viral injection, chronic cranial-window implantation, and headbar installation.

• Mentor research associates and technicians – and, at the senior or principal level, more junior scientists; contribute to hiring, onboarding, and lab culture.

• Contribute to publications, talks, open data and tooling releases, and engagement with the broader scientific community.

Required:

• PhD with 0-4 years of experience in neuroscience, bioengineering, physics, or a related field, or equivalent research experience. We value demonstrated skill and relevant experience above credentials.

• Hands-on rodent and/or primate survival surgery experience; stereotaxic injections.

• Hands-on experience with in vivo two-photon calcium imaging and/or holographic (SLM-based) optogenetics in rodents or primates.

• Practical experience with two-photon systems: optical alignment, system characterization, and in vivo use.

• Proficiency in scientific computing for neural-data analysis; Python and/or MATLAB, with Suite2p, CaImAn, or comparable pipelines.

Preferred/Nice to Have:

• ZEMAX modeling

• Experience with ultrafast pulsed lasers (Ti:Sapphire, fiber) and nonlinear optics.

• Two-photon optogenetics (SLM-based holography, temporal focusing, or spiral-scanning photostimulation); soma-targeted opsins such as ChRmine.

• Prior systems neuroscience research in cortex, working memory, decision-making, or motor/premotor circuits.

• Conviction that the brain’s internal model can be understood in full, and that getting there requires a kind of science no single academic lab can do; we’re betting on scale, deep collaboration across science and engineering, and open sharing of ideas in a full-stack environment.

• Willingness to be held to an engineering standard: our decisive tests are write-in experiments; constructing a specific percept, thought, or internal state, not merely decoding one. What we cannot build, we do not understand.

• Comfort building on shared infrastructure rather than private projects; rigs, surgical preparations, and analysis pipelines are standardized so they can be shared, and datasets are designed to stitch across sessions and animals.

• Commitment to open science; we release tools, data, and methods, and aim to create a new dynamic of rapid, open exchange in neuroscience.

Research Scientist at Astera Neuro running an all-optical program to read, write, and perturb the content of working memory in the primate cortex at single-cell resolution. You will design the implants, help perform the survival surgeries it depends on, and run the two-photon holographic optogenetics that causally manipulates cognition. This work sits within Astera Neuro’s larger effort to answer the hardest and least understood questions in neuroscience: how the brain generates thoughts, intelligence, and consciousness.

Astera Neuro provides a comprehensive benefits package and total compensation that is competitive and commensurate with the level of experience and qualifications.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity and inclusion!