• Functional Area: Research - Scientific
• Department: Picower Institute for Learning & Memory
• School Area: Science
• Employment Type: Full-Time
• Employment Category: Exempt
• Visa Sponsorship Available: No

Working at MIT offers opportunities, an environment, a culture – and benefits – that just aren’t found together anywhere else. If you’re curious, motivated, want to be part of a unique community, and help shape the future – then take a look at this opportunity.

TECHNICAL ASSOCIATE, Picower Institute for Learning and Memory-Chung Lab, to undertake engineering design, fabrication, and quality control in support of new specialized research instruments, especially as applied to an ongoing human brain mapping project.  The Chung Lab is an interdisciplinary research team devoted to developing and applying novel technologies (e.g., CLARITY) for integrative and comprehensive understanding of large-scale complex biological systems. The lab develops a host of methods enabling rapid extraction of system-wide structural, molecular, and genomic information from intact tissues. These technologies are combined with physiological and behavioral approaches to study function and dysfunction of mammalian brain and other organs. 

Responsibilities include:

• The design, fabrication, and testing of large-scale tissue processing devices to streamline the accelerated preservation and labelling of large human brain slabs
• Collaborating on improving the design of these devices and others to accelerate the progress of research goals; training and supervising research associates on the safe and correct operation of the lab’s light sheet and confocal microscopes to enable higher throughput data acquisition across multiple imaging systems lab-wide
• Managing petabyte-scale data volumes and coordinating access to ensure stable data access for machine learning analysis of this microscope-generated data; ongoing quality control of microscope-generated data to ensure the fidelity and credibility of downstream machine-learning analysis
• Leading an independent research project; developing and running software (Imaris, ImageJ, custom Python scripts) for image analysis
• And documenting results and generating reports.

Job Requirements
REQUIRED:  bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering or related field; two years’ related design, prototyping, and research experience; and ability to work independently and as part of a team.  Knowledge of Python and familiarity with Imaris a plus.  Job #17991

MIT is an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, ancestry, or national or ethnic origin.