Research Fellow/ Senior Research Fellow

About us

The Department is seeking to appoint a Research Fellow or Senior Research Fellow, funded by a UKRI grant (ERC Consolidator, EU – underwrite), to study sensory and spatial processing in rodents within the laboratories within the Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience (IBN). The role will be primarily in the Saleem Lab (www.saleemlab.com) within the Institute.

About the Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience (IBN):

The IBN is a hub of UCL’s behavioural neuroscience community. Our researchers are interested in how low-level neural processes such as the actions of genes, proteins, neurons and neural circuits collectively translate to high-level processes such as behaviour, thinking, emotion and consciousness.
The IBN currently has five PIs, all working with rodents and exploring various aspects of the neural encoding sensation, perception, cognition and action.

About the role

We seek an ambitious Research Fellow (postdoctoral researcher) or Senior Research Fellow to join the lab of Professor Aman Saleem (aman.saleem@ucl.ac.uk). Their primary role will be to carry our cutting edge research on understanding the interaction between the visual and spatial systems during navigation – using approaches from systems neuroscience. Research in the lab includes the use of a variety of experimental (head-fixed and freely moving two-photon imaging and high-density electrophysiology; virtual and augmented reality environments) and computational methodologies to study neural circuits. We are looking for either experiment neuroscientists applying computational approaches to neural data, or computational neuroscientists.

The appointment at grade 7 (Research Fellow) currently begins at an annual salary of £43,124 including London Allowance and is dependent upon having been awarded a PhD; if this is not the case, initial appointment will be at Research Assistant Grade 6B salary with payment at Grade 7 being backdated to the date of final submission of the PhD thesis. Appointment at grade 8 (Senior Research Fellow) currently begins at an annual salary of £52,487 including London Allowance.

This post is funded by the UKRI – EU underwrite of an ERC consolidator grant to Prof. Saleem – “Learning to Represent Space in the Brain”.

The post is funded for 2 years in the first instance with an expected start date of March 2025.

About you

The successful applicant will hold a PhD or equivalent qualification in a relevant discipline (Neuroscience, or a related field), and will experience in performing high-quality research. They would have experience in programming, ideally for large-scale data analysis, and additional experimental know-how of rodent physiology is highly desirable.
We are a highly collaborative environment and the ability to work as part of the team is essential, and the ability to supervise others is essential. They would also have excellent oral, written communication and interpersonal skills.

For applicants to be considered for the Senior Research Associate position, It is essential that they also have prior postdoctoral experience, a strong publication track record, and evidence of supervising research projects. Additionally, evidence of acquiring funding is also desirable.

For informal queries about the role and the application process please contact PaLS HR (pal.hr@ucl.ac.uk).

What we offer

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

As London’s Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world’s talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong. We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL’s workforce. These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; LGBTQI+ people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women.