[BIC-announce] Postdoc at Martinos Center (Development of motion aware diffusion and functional MRI analysis techniques for clinical autism research)

[Zografos 'Aki' CARAMANOS]

*Postdoctoral Fellowship: *Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging and the
Psychiatric Neuroimaging Division of the Psychiatry Department at
Massachusetts
General Hospital, Charlestown, MA

*Project: *Development of motion aware diffusion and functional MRI
analysis techniques for clinical autism research

*PI: *Dara S. Manoach, Ph.D.


We are seeking a candidate who combines technical sophistication in fMRI
and DTI data
analysis with a strong interest in autism research to complement our team
of clinical
researchers and MRI engineers.

Recent work clearly demonstrates that head motion can give rise to spurious
group
differences in studies of clinical populations. Our team is developing
several technical
innovations that will significantly reduce the impact of head motion on
fMRI and diffusion
acquisition. We are seeking a candidate to work with us to: 1) improve data
analysis by
making fMRI and diffusion analysis motion-aware using both the in-image
data and the
motion tracking data and 2) apply these optimized analyses to clinical
data. Our goal is
to develop a complete acquisition and analysis pipeline that allows us to
overcome the
artifactual group differences due to motion, and study the true underlying
differences in
functional and structural connectivity related to autism.

The Research Fellow will be expected to:
1) Assist with setting up the data acquisition to ensure that the protocols
are well-
designed for the clinical questions;
2) Help with the modification of motion-aware processing tools that work in
concert with
existing software packages to improve the analysis of fMRI and DWI data;
3) Assist in the processing, interpretation and analysis of the results of
both phantom
and human studies; and
4) Apply these methods to address clinical research questions in autism.

Our ideal candidate has a PhD in Cognitive Science, Computer Science,
Electrical
Engineering, or a related field. Candidates with experience in image
processing and
time series analysis (ideally in fMRI and diffusion data analysis) will be
preferred. This
position requires strong programming skills, and the candidate is expected
to have
experience working in C++, scripting languages (e.g., Python), and
rapid-prototyping
languages for numerical algorithms (e.g., Matlab, Mathematica). Strong
communication
skills are essential, as the position involves working with an
interdisciplinary team of
scientists in both MRI physics/engineering and psychology/neuroscience in
addition
to research coordinators and MRI technologists. Mentoring in clinical
research will be
provided.

Candidates available immediately will be preferred. Please send (a) CV, (b)
statement
of post-doctoral and career goals, (c) writing sample (e.g., a published
manuscript),
and (d) letters and/or contact information for three references to Dara
Manoach at
dara at nmr.mgh.harvard.edu.
http://nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/manoachlab
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