Positions in EU Collaborative Project BRAINTRAIN

The BRAINTRAIN project "Taking imaging into the therapeutic domain: Self-regulation of brain systems for mental disorders“ aims to develop optimised software for (combined) fMRI and EEG neurofeedback training targeting specific patient populations. Brain Innovation will collaborate with multiple external partners (Cardiff, UK; Tel Aviv, Israel; Coimbra, Portugal; Tuebingen, Germany; London, UK; Oxford, UK) with expertise in specific psychiatric diseases to create tailor-made software products for optimal therapeutic interventions.

Project Abstract

Our proposal is based on the idea that real-time functional neuroimaging can be used to train patients to regulate their own brain activity via neurofeedback training and thus modulate the brain networks of mental disorder, restore function, improve symptoms and promote resilience. We have brought together the core groups that have been instrumental in the development of methods for real-time functional imaging and fMRI (functional magnetic resonance)-based neurofeedback and have led the initial clinical applications in neuropsychiatric disorders. Our proposal has three main components, the development and refinement of methods for the real-time analysis and feedback of fMRI data and combination with other imaging modalities (WP2), the adaptation of fMRI mapping techniques to localise disease-relevant networks and development of protocols for their self-regulation through neurofeedback (WP3) and the assessment of feasibility and clinical effects in several mental disorders that are characterised by dysfunctional brain systems for motivation, emotion regulation and social communication and by important therapeutic gaps (autism spectrum disorders, alcohol addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, childhood anxiety disorders, binge-eating disorder) (WP4). We will also explore the potential transfer of (laboratory-based) imaging feedback training into everyday settings through ambulatory and assistive technologies such as electroencephalography (EEG) and gaming (WP5). We will engage with potential users of these technologies (healthcare professionals and providers, medical instrument and software manufacturers, patient and carer associations) through several workshops, liaise with regulatory authorities and disseminate findings to the academic and user communities in WP6.

Available Positions

Starting date for all positions: November 1, 2013, or as soon as possible after this date. Positions open until indicated as closed.

Conditions of employment
Temporary positions - for 3.5 or 4 years as indicated below.
Salaries as indicated below, vacation adds, pension adds
40 working hours per week, flexible working hours between 7:30 AM, 6:00 PM

Project & medical product quality assurance manager (reference: BRAINTRAIN-BI-01, application closed)
The position is temporary for a period of 4 years with a gross salary of 3600-4000 EUR/month (depending on previous experience) plus vacation and pension adds.
Job description
The primary responsibilities of the project/IT/QA manager will be
1) Supervision of software development and research team in collaboration with head of research and development and operational business manager;
2) Requirement engineering - interaction with psychologists at BI and partner sites to obtain knowledge about needs to create software for specific patient applications;
3) Analysis of existing software products, their architecture, design, functions, interfaces for transfer into new software developments;
4) Analysis and documentation of software life cycle process, ensuring QM standards for software test management;
5) Development of specific neurofeedback test cases and specifications for (combined) fMRI and EEG neurofeedback measurements);
6) software change management, validation of defined purpose, usability and acceptance test, preparing clinical pilot studies, supervision of usability testing;
7) Implementation of a risk management system;
8) Contribution to software documentation management (QM handbook, software risk management dossier, usability dossier, management and distribution of documents;
9) In-house employee training in QM standards (ISO 13485), software life circle processes (IEC 62304), usability (IEC 62366, IEC 60601-1-6, ISO 9241), and risk management (ISO 14971)
10) Internal audits to prepare external audits and CE certification of new software products;
11) Interacts with external authorities like certified body for medical software auditing, and public authorities for medical product registration (in Germany and The Netherlands).
Qualification and skills
The candidate should have / should be
1) A Master degree in computer science/medical informatics or similar;
2) Minimum 6 years experience in programming (C/C++, GUI-design), understanding of technical concepts on all levels for QM audit;
3) Minimum 4 years IT project management/ experience as group leader;
4) Certification as internal QM auditor, 3 years experience in QM of medical software products or medical devices;
5) Good German and English communication skills (both written and verbal), Dutch (eligable);
6) Excellent organizational, interpersonal, and teaching skills;
7) Analytic, self-confident, motivated, and diligent.

Research and technical assistant (reference: BRAINTRAIN-BI-02, application closed)
The position is temporary for a period of 4 years with a gross salary 2100 - 2300 EUR/month (depending on previous experience) plus vacation and pension adds.
Job description
The tasks of the technical/research assistant will include:
1) Research organisational and administrative tasks
2) Support of experimental setup and running of (combined) real-time EEG/fMRI measurements;
3) Data storage and data base management;
4) Contributing to basic data analysis;
5) Modification of stimulus presentation software scripts and integration of real-time fMRI/EEG software with measurement hardware (e.g. reading/sending/processing of trigger signals).
Qualification and skills
The candidate should have / should be
1) Technical or administrational profession (MBO/professional degree with practical experience, or BA in IT, psychology, business management or similar)
2) Good skills in MS Office applications and basic programming skills (scripting)
3) Good English communication skills (both written and verbal);
4) Excellent organizational, interpersonal skills;
5) Motivated, diligent.

Post-doctoral position for combined EEG/fMRI neurofeedback research (reference: BRAINTRAIN-BI-03, application closed)
The position is temporary for a period of 4 years with a gross salary of 3600-4000 EUR/month (depending on previous experience) plus vacation and pension adds.
Job description
The main tasks of the post-doctoral position will be:
1) Setup of experimental design, data acquisition, analysis and evaluation of combined EEG and fMRI neurofeedback studies;
2) Assessing and quantifying the advantages of EEG and fMRI neurofeedback for specific patient groups (depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD, Parkinson, ADHD);
3) Contribution to software development, including usability testing and fine-tuning of advanced software features;
4) Supervision of PhD students including teaching of relevant methods
5) Writing and publishing of scientific articles;
6) Installation and presentation of developed neurofeedback software products for treatment of specific disorders at partner sites.
Qualification and skills
The candidate should have
1) PhD in Psychology, (Cognitive) Neuroscience, (Biomedical) Engineering, Computer Science or Mathematics, (Bio-)Physics;
2) Strong interest in the area of cognition, executive functions, and brain computer interfaces;
3) Research experience during interships/Master/PhD thesis in EEG/fMRI acquisition and analysis, brain-computer interfaces, EEG/fMRI neurofeedback, multivariate pattern analysis, functional/effective connectivity, computational modeling.
4) Experience with scientific programming (Matlab/Python/C++).

PhD postion for real-time EEG neurofeedback and BCI research (reference: BRAINTRAIN-BI-04, application closed)
The position is temporary for a period of 3.5 years with a gross salary of 2700 EUR/month plus vacation and pension adds.
Job description
The primary responsibilities of the PhD student will be:
1) to actively participate in the experimental design, acquisition and analysis of real-time EEG experiments;
2) To explore and propose advanced and novel methods for EEG neurofeedback;
3) to develop prototype tools in high or intermediate level programming languages for the implementation and testing of these methods in research;
4) collaboration with the other parts (fMRI, software development) of the research program;
5) writing and publishing of scientific articles.
Qualification and skills
The candidate should have
1) (Research) Master degree in any of the following disciplines:
(Cognitive) Neuroscience, (Biomedical) Engineering, Computer Science or Mathematics, (Bio-)Physics;
2) A strong interest and experience in the area of cognition, executive functions, and brain computer interfaces as well as experience with scientific programming (Matlab/Python/C++).
3) Research experience (during master thesis, research internships) in one or more of the following topics/techniques will be strongly valued: EEG acquisition and analysis, brain-computer interfaces, EEG/fMRI neurofeedback, multivariate pattern analysis, functional/effective connectivity, computational modeling.

PhD postion for real-time fMRI neurofeedback and BCI research (reference: BRAINTRAIN-BI-05, application closed)
The position is temporary for a period of 3.5 years with a gross salary of 2700 EUR/month plus vacation and pension adds.
Job description
The primary responsibilities of the PhD student will be:
1) to actively participate in the experimental design, acquisition and analysis of real-time fMRI experiments;
2) To explore and propose advanced and novel methods for fMRI neurofeedback;
3) to develop prototype tools in high or intermediate level programming languages for the implementation and testing of these methods in research;
4) collaboration with the other parts (EEG, software development) of the research program;
5) writing and publishing of scientific articles.
Qualification and skills
The candidate should have
1) (Research) Master degree in any of the following disciplines:
(Cognitive) Neuroscience, (Biomedical) Engineering, Computer Science or Mathematics, (Bio-)Physics;
2) A strong interest and experience in the area of cognition, executive functions, and brain computer interfaces as well as experience with scientific programming (Matlab/Python/C++).
3) Research experience (during master thesis, research internships) in one or more of the following topics/techniques will be strongly valued: fMRI acquisition and analysis, brain-computer interfaces, EEG/fMRI neurofeedback, multivariate pattern analysis, functional/effective connectivity, computational modeling.

Junior software developer for EEG neurofeedback (reference: BRAINTRAIN-BI-06, application closed)
The position is temporary for a period of 4 years with a gross salary 2700 EUR/month plus vacation and pension adds.
Job description
The main tasks of the software developer will be:
1) Improvement of prototype framework for real-time EEG data analysis pipeline;
2) Matlab/C++ implementation of major preprocessing and analysis steps, including multivariate pattern and network analysis tools;
3) Close collaboration with EEG postdoc and EEG PhD;
4) Detailed code documentation and writing of user manual;
5) Unit testing according to quality assurance guidelines.
Qualification and skills
The candidate should have
1) A (research) Master degree in any of the following disciplines: (Cognitive) Neuroscience, (Biomedical) Engineering, Computer Science or Mathematics, (Bio-)Physics.
2) A strong interest in scientific programming and brain-computer interfaces.
3) Experience in programming scientific software tools in one of the following domains/techniques will be strongly valued: machine learning, data mining, multivariate pattern recognition, statistics, image processing, real-time data analysis.
4) Programming expertise in C/C++ and parallel code implementation on CPU (multi-threading) and GPU (OpenCL, Cuda);
5) Knowledge of Matlab/Python/Qt is a plus.

Junior software developer for fMRI neurofeedback and database specialist (reference: BRAINTRAIN-BI-07, application closed)
The position is temporary for a period of 4 years with a gross salary 2700 EUR/month plus vacation and pension adds.
Job description
The main tasks of the software developer will be:
1) user interface specification of fMRI/EEG neurofeedback software tailored for specific patient applications;
2) C++ implementation of plugins needed for specific patient applications;
3) Intensive interaction with research and software development team;
4) Setting up imaging data base for testing and evaluating new tools;
5) Detailed code documentation and writing of user manual;
6) Setup of prototype and final software for specific patient groups at partner sites.
Qualification and skills
The candidate should have
1) A (research) Master degree in any of the following disciplines: (Cognitive) Neuroscience, (Biomedical) Engineering, Computer Science or Mathematics, (Bio-)Physics.
2) A strong interest in scientific programming and brain-computer interfaces.
3) Experience in programming scientific software tools in one of the following domains/techniques will be strongly valued: machine learning, data mining/ database programming and maintenance, multivariate pattern recognition, statistics, image processing, real-time data analysis.
4) Programming expertise in C/C++ and parallel code implementation on CPU (multi-threading) and GPU (OpenCL, Cuda);
5) Knowledge of Matlab/Python/Qt is a plus.

Software application developer (reference: BRAINTRAIN-BI-08)
The position is temporary for a period of 3.5 years with a gross salary 2100 EUR/month plus vacation and pension adds.
Job description
The main tasks of the software developer will be:
1) C++/OpenCL implementation of real-time import of EEG data from measurement devices in existing EEG/MEG platform;
2) C++/OpenCL implementation of selected online preprocessing and analysis methods based on specifications including prototype implementations in Matlab, Python or C++;
3) Code documentation;
4) Unit testing according to quality assurance guidelines.
Qualification and skills
Candidates should have
1) A Bachelor degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience;
2) A strong interest in scientific programming and brain-computer interfaces;
3) Experience in programming scientific software tools in one of the following domains/techniques will be strongly valued: machine learning, data mining, multivariate pattern recognition, statistics, image processing, real-time data analysis.
4) Programming expertise in C/C++ and parallel code implementation on CPU (multi-threading) and GPU (OpenCL, Cuda);
5) Knowledge of Matlab/Python/Qt is a plus.