New Jersey’s academic health center, Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS) takes an integrated approach to educating students, providing clinical care, and conducting research, all with the goal of improving human health. Aligned with Rutgers University–New Brunswick and collaborating university wide, RBHS includes eight schools, a behavioral health network, and six centers and institutes that focus on cancer treatment and research, neuroscience, clinical and translational research, advanced biotechnology and medicine, environmental and occupational health, and health care policy and aging research.

Our faculty are teachers, clinicians, and scientists with unparalleled experience who advance medical innovation and provide patient care informed by the latest research findings. We offer an outstanding education in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, public health, nursing, biomedical research, and the full spectrum of allied health careers.

Our clinical and academic facilities are located throughout the state including New Brunswick, Piscataway, Newark, Scotch Plains, Somerset, Blackwood, and other locations. Clinical partners include Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, University Hospital in Newark, and other affiliates.

Through this community of healers, scientists, and scholars, Rutgers is equipped as never before to transform lives.

Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey is seeking a motivated Postdoctoral Fellow for the Brain Health Institute within the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

The Postdoctoral Fellow will work in the laboratory of Todd Mowery on a project dedicated to studying the effect of early sensory experience on audiovisual learning and perception.

The Postdoctoral Fellow will work as part of an integrated research team utilizing a variety of laboratory technologies associated with neuroanatomical tracing approaches, and in vivo extracellular physiological recordings from awake-behaving animals. The Postdoctoral Fellow will work along-side a research team comprised of the principal investigator (Todd Mowery), an in vitro physiologist who will carry out whole cell recordings from trained/learning animals, graduate student(s), and undergraduate research assistants that carry out behavioral training and histology.

Among the key duties of this position are the following:

• Carries out neuroanatomical tracing experiments to verify the functional connectivity between first and higher order auditory/visual thalamocorticostriatal brain regions.
• Uses neuroanatomical injection techniques coupled with electrode array/cannula/LED implantations to carry out DREADDs/Optogenetics applications for in vivo electrophysiology experiments in awake-behaving animals (Tucker-Davis Technology System).
• Learns to proficiently train and instruct others (RAs,PhD candidates) in the training of gerbils/rats in various audiovisual behavioral paradigms. Mentor/Train graduate students in stereotaxic surgical procedures.
• Analyzes, organizes and presents data at laboratory meetings and major scientific meetings. Carries out manuscript preparation including data analysis, writing, and figure creation.

Information about the benefits provided to Rutgers employees can be found at: http://uhr.rutgers.edu/benefits/benefits-overview

• A PhD degree in neuroscience or a relevant science, with a focus on associative behavioral models.

• Demonstrate a record of productivity as first author on one or more scholarly peer reviewed publications.
• Training in animal handling and behavioral training, as well as experience in biological techniques including electrophysiology, histology, and stereotaxic surgical procedures.
• Able to operate standard laboratory equipment such as tissue slicers, scales, wetlab equipment.
• Proficiency in English for both verbal and written communications is a requirement.

• Ability to lift up to 25 pounds.