Postdoc in Computational Cognitive Neuroscience

[Randall C. O'Reilly]

Postdoctoral Position Announcement:

A postdoctoral research position in the computational cognitive
neuroscience lab at the University of Colorado at Boulder is now open
for applications.  The ideal candidate is someone with a strong
background in computational modeling of neural systems as applied to
cognitive phenomena such as memory, perception, attention, language,
problem solving, etc.  The focus of the funding for this position is
on developing a biologically-based cognitive architecture based on
existing models of specialized brain areas including hippocampus,
prefrontal cortex/basal ganglia, and posterior cortex.  Although
considerable progress has been made on these more specialized models,
much work remains to be done on integrating them into an overall
architecture that is capable of more complex cognitive functions.  Our
ultimate goal is to develop neural models capable of performing
sophisticated temporally-extended tasks in complex, real-world
environments (e.g., navigation, planning, problem solving).  Initial
steps include developing an interactive model of the visual system
(dorsal-ventral pathways) that responds to top-down attentional/goal
inputs from prefrontal cortex, and integrating this with prefrontal
cortex/basal ganglia learning models.  Throughout, the use of powerful
learning mechanisms is emphasized, as is the inspiration from both
neural and cognitive data, and the application of the models to
simulating concrete empirical data.  Due to the broad scope of this
research and other work going on within the lab, there is considerable
flexibility in the choice of specific research projects.

This position is supervised by Randy O'Reilly, and collaborators
include a number of researchers at CU Boulder (Yuko Munakata, Marie
Banich, Tim Curran, Mike Mozer, Jerry Rudy, Dan Jurafsky) and at other
institutions (Jonathan Cohen @ Princeton, Todd Braver @ Wash U
St. Louis, David Noelle @ Vanderbilt, Nicolas Rougier @ Loria, Nancy,
France).  For more information, see
http://psych.colorado.edu/~oreilly/lab.html.

In addition to providing an exciting research environment, the greater
Boulder area offers an exceptional quality of life.  Spectacularly
situated at the edge of the Rockies, this area provides a wide variety
of extraordinary outdoor activities, an average of over 300 sunny days
per year, and also affords a broad range of cultural activities.

Interested individuals should send a vita, representative
publications, and a statement of research interests. Three letters of
recommendation should be sent separately. Materials can be sent
electronically to oreilly at psych.colorado.edu or snail-mailed to:

Randall O'Reilly
Department of Psychology, 345 UCB
University of Colorado, Boulder
Boulder, CO  80309-0345

Review of applications will begin in February 2004, and will continue
until the position is filled.  The University of Colorado Boulder is
an equal opportunity employer.