Research Fellow in Cognitive/Computational Neuroscience

• Our core mission is to advance the scientific understanding of consciousness, and to use the insights from this research for the benefit of society, medicine, and technology.

• Based in our Informatics lab, you will be part of a diverse, interdisciplinary team led by Professor Anil Seth, which spans the departments of Informatics, Philosophy, Psychology and BSMS, and which enjoys a wide range of experimental and computational facilities (including EEG/TMS/fMRI). The group has strong collaborative links beyond Sussex, including leading consciousness researchers both nationally and internationally.

• Joining our Centre will offer plenty of opportunity to contribute to wider team activities, including collaborative research, public engagement activities, and – where appropriate – supervisory and administrative duties.

• You will be working on a European Research Council project called CONSCIOUS: Computational Neurophenomenology - Explaining Conscious Experiences in terms of Neural Mechanisms, which seeks to apply computational modelling methods to characterise phenomenological features of conscious experiences in experimentally testable ways.
• The specific project focus is flexible, to be decided with the project lead. We have a general emphasis on predictive processing / active inference modelling approaches, in which conscious experiences – of the world and of the self – are understood as arising from the brain’s ‘best guesses’ of the causes of its sensory inputs, but other approaches are and will be considered.

• Potential areas of focus include (i) hybrid predictive coding and gist perception, (ii) the ‘uniformity illusion’ and its neural basis. (iii) interoceptive inference and the nature of the self.

• This flexible focus will suit candidates with original ideas and the ability to develop and pursue their own research agendas, within the project remit. Applications should therefore be accompanied by a research statement, which may (but need not) outline the research the candidate would like to undertake.

• The project will involve a combination of behavioural experiments and the development of computational models of phenomenological properties, and, ideally, experimental tests of these models using psychophysics and/or neuroimaging.
• You will have an established record of high-quality research publications, technical skills applicable to computational modelling in cognitive neuroscience, and experience in the analysis and presentation of experimental research.
• You will have the ability to work both independently and harmoniously within a team and be highly attentive to details. You will be a quick learner, keen to engage in active scholarship in relation to the research topic, and proactive about open science policies such as study pre-registration.
• You will be educated to doctoral level in a relevant discipline. Experience in human neuroimaging (especially MEG/EEG), psychophysics, and/or MATLAB/Python programming and analysis environments is desirable.

Please contact Professor Anil Seth: [email protected] for informal enquiries.

The University is committed to equality and valuing diversity, and applications are particularly welcomed from women and black and minority ethnic candidates, who are under-represented in academic posts in Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine and Mathematics (STEMM) at Sussex.

The University of Sussex values the diversity of its staff and students, and we welcome applicants from all backgrounds.

Please note: The University requires that work undertaken for the University is performed from the UK.