Research Associate, Rodent Surgery & Behavior

About Astera

Astera is a private foundation on a mission to steer science and technology toward a better future. We believe the coming years will bring an era of unprecedented scientific and technological advancement as exponential progress in AI converges with central advances in other fields to accelerate innovation. This inflection point provides an unparalleled opportunity to fundamentally rethink the institutions, systems, and tools that drive progress. We have committed a $3.5B endowment to that work and fit the form of our support to the function it serves: grants, investments, and in-house research programs. We accept meaningful risk in the research we back and expect some of it to fail because transformative ideas are rarely the ones already proven. Our projects, and the foundation itself, operate like high-velocity startups, with a high performance bar and competitive compensation to match. We are searching for leaders who are compelled by the challenge of driving high-impact change in the way science is funded, conducted, and communicated. You can read more about our mission, vision, and programming at astera.org/vision.

Company Overview

Astera Neuro seeks to understand and engineer consciousness. We believe consciousness is the process by which the brain builds a coherent internal model of the world and the self. We aim to understand this model and to develop the technologies to write experience directly into the brain. By combining large-scale neural recording, causal perturbation, and brain-based AI, we seek to move neuroscience from observing correlates of experience to engineering it. The same tools carry direct therapeutic promise for neurological and psychiatric diseases that alter perception, thought, and sense of self. Because the science and tools required do not yet exist, we are assembling a founding team of neuroscientists, theorists, and engineers to create them. We do high-risk, high-reward science in a well-resourced, collaborative environment with competitive pay, and share everything openly under Astera's Open Science Policy.

Position Summary

We’re hiring a research associate to join Astera Neuro’s rodent neuroscience team. Your initial assignment is to run the surgery and behavior training that prepare animals for an all-optical program: reading, writing, and perturbing working memory in the mouse cortex. Chronic cranial-window and headbar implants are the core of the job from day one.

The ideal candidate is meticulous and fast with their hands, with experience performing cranial-window surgeries. You can implant a window in the morning, run a behavior-training session in the afternoon, and keep the colony and the rigs in order. A clear, long-lived window is what makes a write-in experiment possible, so surgical yield and preparation quality set the ceiling on what the team can attempt.

What You’ll Do

• Perform mouse survival surgeries: stereotaxic AAV viral-vector delivery, chronic cranial-window implantation, and headbar installation.

• Run head-fixed behavior training on the sequence working-memory task, including daily training, data collection, and rig upkeep.

• Build and maintain behavior rigs, including Bonsai and Harp control and lickport hardware.

• Run the mouse colony and coordinate animal sourcing, health, and readiness with the vivarium.

• Keep careful, shared records of surgeries, training histories, and preparation quality so others can build on the work.

• Work closely with the scientists running the all-optical experiments to keep preparation, imaging, and perturbation tightly coupled.

Who You Are

Required:

• BS or BA with 0-6+ years of experience in neuroscience, biology, bioengineering, or a related field, or equivalent hands-on experience. We value demonstrated skill and relevant experience above credentials.

• Current, hands-on experience performing mouse survival surgery: chronic cranial-window implantation and headbar installation, plus stereotaxic viral injections. This is the requirement that matters most: these are hard skills to learn, and we need them on day one.

• A track record of high surgical yield and healthy, long-lived window preparations.

• Meticulous, fast hands, and the ability to sustain high-quality work at volume.

Preferred/Nice to Have:

• Head-fixed behavior-training experience, ideally with working-memory or sequence tasks.

• Scripting in Python and familiarity with Bonsai and Harp or comparable behavior-control tools.

• Experience building and maintaining behavior rigs, including lickport and other custom hardware.

• Experience with two-photon imaging or optogenetic stimulation in awake mice.

• Colony management experience and comfort coordinating with vivarium staff.

What We Value

• Conviction that the brain’s internal model can be understood in full, and that getting there requires a kind of science no single academic lab can do; we’re betting on scale, deep collaboration, and open sharing of ideas in a full-stack environment.

• Willingness to be held to an engineering standard. In this role that standard lands on the preparation: we treat surgical yield and window quality as scientific results, not support work.

• Comfort building on shared infrastructure rather than private projects; rigs, surgical preparations, and records are standardized so they can be shared across the team.

• Care for the animals: healthy, well-handled, calm mice, supported by dedicated veterinary oversight, are the foundation of both the science and its credibility, independent of what regulation requires.

• Commitment to open science. We release tools, data, and methods, and aim to create a new dynamic of rapid, open exchange in neuroscience.

Why Join Us

Research Associate at Astera Neuro preparing animals for an all-optical program to read, write, and perturb working memory in mouse cortex. You will perform the surgeries the program depends on, run behavior training, and keep the colony and rigs in order. This work sits within Astera Neuro’s larger effort to answer the hardest and least understood questions in neuroscience: how the brain generates thoughts, intelligence, and consciousness.

Astera Neuro provides a comprehensive benefits package and total compensation that is competitive and commensurate with the level of experience and qualifications.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity and inclusion!