[BIC-announce] FW: Postdoc offer at INRIA Rennes

[Jennifer Chew, Ms.]

PLEASE SEE DETAILS BELOW.  THANK YOU.  JENNIFER  


Jennifer Chew
McConnell Brain Imaging Centre
MNI - WB317
3801 University Street
Montreal, Qc  H3A 2B4
Telephone:  514-398-8554
Fax:  514-398-2975



Supervisor: Dr. Sylvain Prima, INRIA senior research scientist (+33 2 99
84 73 59, Sylvain.Prima at irisa.fr)

Location: Unit/Project VisAGeS, IRISA, Campus de Beaulieu, 35042 Rennes
Cedex, France (http://www.irisa.fr/visages)

Net Salary: about 2000 euros/month

Duration: 12 months (end 2009 - end 2010)

Context
A cranial endocast is a cast (replica) of the inside of the skull.
Natural (fossil) endocasts can sometimes be found, and artificial
endocasts can be typically obtained by filling the empty braincase with
latex and using the latter as a mould to build a plaster cast. More
recently, CT has been extensively used to build "virtual" or "digital"
endocasts in a precise and non-invasive way.
Studying endocasts is of the utmost importance, because they constitute
the only way to indirectly assess global (size, shape) and sometimes
local characteristics (meningeal/sulcal/gyral patterns) of the cerebral
anatomy of extinct species, and especially hominids. Due to the
difficulty to observe and analyse them before the advent of CT, cranial
endocasts have been somewhat neglected in many phylogenetic studies
compared to the external skull anatomy, whereas they provide a unique
way to look at the evolution of the human brain, and to compare it with
that of its closest relatives (i.e. the other primates).
To date, there exist only few tools to study such data in an automated
way. Endocasts pose specific problems, most notably due to the
difficulty to define relevant anatomical landmarks on them.

More info: http://www.irisa.fr/visages/documents/PostDocEndocasts.pdf