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Research Associate, Cope Lab

Dr. Elise Cope's Lab in the Department of Neuroscience and the Center of Brain Immunology and Glia (BIG) at the University of Virginia is seeking to hire a motivated Postdoctoral Research Associate to investigate how structural plasticity contributes to social memory function in the healthy and diseased brain. Research in the lab focuses on hippocampal microcircuits underlying social memory, with an emphasis on the roles of adult-born neurons, perineuronal nets, and microglia.

The Cope Lab employs behavioral, histological, pharmacologic, environmental, transgenic, viral, chemogenetic, and in vivo electrophysiological methods to uncover how these cells and their cellular or extracellular structures interact and collectively shape hippocampal social memory function. Postdoctoral Research Associates will manage their own projects, interact with other lab members and collaborators, present their work at lab meetings and conferences, and contribute to grant applications and manuscripts for publication.

Candidates will be expected to learn new techniques as a part of their training requirement. This position also includes opportunities to help mentor and teach students. The position is a 12-month appointment with the possibility of renewal contingent upon satisfactory performance and the availability of funding.

Postdoctoral employment is temporary and is normally limited to an individual who has been awarded a Ph.D. or equivalent doctorate within the previous five years and who will be involved in full-time research or scholarship at the University. Employment as a Postdoctoral Research Associate is viewed as training and is preparatory for a full-time academic or research career, is supervised by a senior scholar, and allows the appointee to publish the results of his/her research or scholarship during the training period.

Qualified candidates must have:

• Doctoral degree in neuroscience, or a related field by the start date of the appointment
• First author publication(s)
• Experience in the independent conduct of laboratory experiments including experimental design, data display in figures, data analysis including standard statistical analyses, and data management
• Interest and confidence in developing new techniques for hypothesis testing
• High level of motivation and technical capacity to drive a research project
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail
• Excellent communication skills, demonstrated by a strong publication record, consistent with the candidate's career stage, and presentations at conferences
• Ability to work with others as part of a team, including both teaching and learning from others

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with one or more of these methods: mouse handling, stereotaxic survival surgery, behavior testing, immunohistochemistry, confocal imaging, in vivo neural recordings.
• Demonstrated creativity and flexibility in experimental design or new methods

Physical Demands: This is primarily a sedentary job involving extensive use of desktop computers. The job does occasionally require traveling some distance to attend meetings, and programs.

To Apply: Please apply through the UVA job board, and search for R0071681. Internal applicants may search and apply for jobs on the UVA Internal Careers website. Complete an application online with the following documents:

• Cover letter
• Curriculum vitae (CV)

Upload all materials into the resume submission field, multiple documents can be submitted into this one field. Alternatively, merge all documents into one PDF for submission. Applications that do not contain all required documents will not receive full consideration. References will be completed via UVA's standardized process Skill Survey. A total of five references will be requested via SkillSurvey during the final phase of the interview process. For questions about the application process, please contact Jon Freeman, Recruiter, at jf2sw@virginia.edu.