Research Scientist / Engineer, Functional Ultrasound Imaging

Astera; Emeryville (CA); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Astera Neuro in Emeryville seeks a scientist/engineer to develop a volumetric functional ultrasound imaging platform for awake, behaving primates. You will bridge hardware, experiments, and computation to build mesoscale brain imaging capabilities and functional atlases.

You will collaborate with engineers, neuroscientists, veterinarians, and external partners; mentor staff; and contribute to open datasets, software, and scientific publications.

Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent demonstrated expertise in neuroscience, bioengineering, physics, electrical engineering, or related field.
• Strong programming skills in Python and/or MATLAB.
• Experience with in vivo functional ultrasound imaging or high-resolution neuroimaging.
• Experience designing neuroscience experiments in primates, including awake macaque work.
• Experience analyzing large-scale imaging or multimodal datasets using ML or computational methods.

Responsibilities

• Build, validate, and optimize a large-scale volumetric functional ultrasound imaging platform for awake, behaving primates.
• Design and execute multimodal neuroscience experiments combining fUSI with behavioral paradigms and recording methods.
• Develop robust computational pipelines for image reconstruction, preprocessing, registration, QC, and analysis.
• Analyze large-scale functional imaging datasets using modern statistical and ML approaches.
• Register imaging data across sessions and animals to create brain atlases.
• Integrate fUSI with electrophysiology and other modalities to map brain function.
• Collaborate with engineers to improve imaging hardware and software; mentor staff and junior scientists.

Skills

Python

MATLAB

Image analysis

Neuroimaging

Machine learning

Mentorship

Education

PhD in neuroscience or related field

Job description

Company Overview

Astera Neuro is a philanthropically funded research organization within the Astera Institute, working to decipher and ultimately write the neural codes underlying perception, thought, behavior, and internal state.

Position Summary

You will develop Astera Neuro's volumetric fUSI platform for primates, working across hardware, experimentation, and computational analysis. From implementing the imaging system and designing experiments to analyzing large-scale datasets and building functional brain atlases, you'll help create one of the world's most advanced platforms for mesoscale imaging of the primate brain.

You'll work alongside engineers, software developers, neuroscientists, veterinarians, and external collaborators in an interdisciplinary team focused on creating technologies that enable fundamentally new neuroscience. Animal wellbeing is foundational to this work, supported by dedicated veterinary and behavioral care staff and rigorous welfare standards.

What You’ll Do

• Build, validate, and optimize a large-scale volumetric functional ultrasound imaging platform for awake, behaving primates.
• Design and execute multimodal neuroscience experiments combining fUSI with behavioral paradigms and complementary recording and perturbation techniques.
• Develop robust computational pipelines for image reconstruction, preprocessing, registration, quality control, statistical analysis, and visualization.
• Analyze large-scale functional imaging datasets using modern statistical and machine learning approaches.
• Register imaging data across sessions and animals to generate high-resolution anatomical and functional brain atlases.
• Integrate fUSI with electrophysiology and other neural recording and perturbation modalities to create comprehensive maps of brain function.
• Collaborate closely with engineers and software developers to continuously improve imaging hardware and acquisition software.
• Mentor research technicians, and at the senior or principal level, more junior scientists and engineers; contribute to hiring, onboarding, and lab culture.
• Publish scientific discoveries using Open Science and FAIR principles, and contribute to open datasets, software, and technical documentation.

Who You Are

Required

• Experience with in vivo functional ultrasound imaging, or with comparable high-resolution neuroimaging technologies.
• Experience designing and executing neuroscience experiments in primates, including awake macaque fMRI.
• Strong scientific programming skills in Python and/or MATLAB.
• Understanding of primate neuroanatomy, image registration, and atlas construction.
• Experience with image reconstruction and signal processing.
• Experience analyzing large-scale imaging, electrophysiology, or multimodal neuroscience datasets, including with machine learning or computational neuroscience methods.
• Ability to work at close quarters with software engineers, hardware engineers, and neuroscientists in a fast-moving, multi-team environment.
• Track record of mentorship and technical leadership.

What We Value

• Conviction that the brain's internal model can be understood in full, and recognition that getting there requires a kind of science no single academic lab can do. We are betting on scale, on deep collaboration across science and engineering, and on open sharing of ideas and expertise in a full-stack environment.
• Appetite for building a capability that does not yet exist. You enjoy building new experimental systems as much as answering scientific questions, and you are comfortable moving between hardware, software, and data analysis.
• 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. Recordings and perturbations will be registered onto a common whole-brain functional and anatomical atlas, and datasets are designed to stitch across sessions, animals, and paradigms.
• Commitment to open science. We will release tools, data, and methods, and we aim to create a new dynamic of rapid, open exchange in neuroscience.

Education

PhD with 4-12+ years of experience in neuroscience, bioengineering, physics, electrical engineering, or a related field is preferred. Equivalent demonstrated expertise will also be considered.

Compensation

Total compensation is competitive and commensurate with the level of experience and qualifications.

Why Join Us

We are seeking an exceptional Research Scientist or Research Engineer to lead the development of a next-generation functional ultrasound imaging (fUSI) platform for whole-brain imaging in awake, behaving primates. This is an opportunity to build a unique experimental capability from the ground up and generate datasets that could redefine how large-scale neural activity is measured. If you enjoy designing sophisticated experimental systems, solving challenging technical problems, and combining engineering, neuroscience, and computation into a single platform, we’d love to hear from you.

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