Connectionists: Postdoctoral positions available in Sophie Deneve's Team, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris

[Sophie Deneve]

Two postdoctoral positions are available in the group of Sophie Deneve,
Ecole Normale supérieure Paris.  Positions are for one year, renewable one
year, and comes with competitive salary and generous equipment and travel
funds.  The team is part of the “Group for neural theory” (
http://iec-lnc.ens.fr/group-for-neural-theory/) and surrounded by top-level
theoretical and experimental labs.


Candidates are expected to have a solid training in the field of
computational neuroscience, proven quantitative and programming skills and
a strong interest in integrative/cognitive neuroscience. Starting dates are
flexible, but should preferentially occur before September 2015.


Possible projects include:


Starting from the hypothesis that biological networks are optimally tuned
to maximize coding efficiency and robustness, we will design new tools to
analyze their dynamics and function.  We will identify functionally
relevant, low-dimensional structures in large neural datasets (spontaneous
and stimulus-driven multi-unit activity in retina, visual cortex, and/or in
Zebrafish whole brain recordings).


Sensory neurons are often described in terms by their receptive fields.   On
the other hand, “generative models” (and more generally, efficient coding)
assume that neurons collectively try to predict their stimuli. In such
scenarios, prior assumptions, metabolic constrains and context deeply
reshape neural selectivity. We will consider implications for learning,
attentional modulation and/or hierarchical neural processing.


Candidates should send their application to sophie.deneve at ens.fr by *March
31, 2015*. Please mention “postdoctoral candidate” in the subject of the
email.  Application should take the form of a single PDF file, containing a
CV, motivation letter, names and email addresses of 2 to 3 referees.  No
official letter of recommendations are required, as the referee will be
contacted directly.

Best wishes,

-- 
Dr Sophie Deneve
Group for Neural Theory
Laboratoire de Neurosciences cognitives
ENS-INSERM
29, rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France
Tel. (+33) (0)1 44 32 26 35
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