Postdoctoral Research Associate - Kirchner Lab

Our Commitment 

Texas A&M University is committed to enriching the learning and working environment by promoting a culture that respects all perspectives, talents & lived experiences. Embracing varying opinions and perspectives strengthens our core values which are: Respect, Excellence, Leadership, Loyalty, Integrity, and Selfless Service.    

Who we are

As one of the fastest-growing academic health centers in the nation, Texas A&M Health encompasses five colleges and numerous centers and institutes working together to improve health through transformative education, innovative research and team-based health care delivery. 

Please note: This position is grant funded; future employment may be contingent upon future funding.   

Apply! Submitting a cover letter, CV/Resume to assist us with the review process. You may upload these documents on the application under CV/Resume.  

Required Education and Experience

• Appropriate PhD in neuroscience, neurophysiology, or a related field.

Preferred Qualifications

• Patch Clamp electrophysiology:

  • Prep solutions for recordings, cutting live brain slices on a vibratome, and perform voltage and current clamp recordings in neurons.

  • Use optogenetics, photolytic uncaging, chemogenetics, fluorescent biosensors, electrical stimulation, and application of pharmacologic compounds during patch clamp experiments.

  • Maintain the electrophysiology rig, keep accurate records of experiments, perform data analysis, and create figures for publications and grants.

• Rodent survival surgery:

  • Coronary ligation (heart failure surgery) for studying the disease in electrophysiology experiments.

  • Stereotaxic delivery of AAVs encoding fluorescent tracers, DREADDs or opsins to be used in electrophysiology experiments.

• Calcium imaging:

  • Utilize calcium dyes or genetically encoded calcium sensors (i.e. GCaMP) to measure and quantify intracellular calcium levels in a live brain slice preparation.

  • Perform these experiments simultaneously with patch clamp.

• Immunohistochemistry (IHC)

  • Transcardial perfusion, fixation, cryostat sectioning, staining, and mounting tissue specimens.

  • Visualization and analysis of IHC imaging data

• Multiunit electrophysiological experiments, particularly using Neuropixels

• Software Expertise and Data Analysis:

  • pCLAMP, ImageJ, MatLab, Imaris

  • Additional expertise using Igor Pro, Prism, Python, and/or Adobe Illustrator

• Ability to train other laboratory members in the techniques listed above.

Why Texas A&M University? 

We are a prestigious university with strong traditions, Core Values, and a community of caring and collaboration.  Amenities associated with a major university, such as sporting and cultural events, state-of-the-art recreation facilities, the Bush Library and Museum, and much more await you.  Experience all that a big city has to offer but with a reasonable cost-of-living and no long commutes.   

• Medical, prescription drug, dental, vision, life and AD&D, flexible spending accounts, and long-term disability insurance with Texas A&M contributing to employee health and basic life premiums  

• 12-15 days of annual paid holidays   

• Up to eight hours of paid sick leave and at least eight hours of paid vacation each month  

• Automatic enrollment in the Teacher Retirement System of Texas   

• Health and Wellness: Free exercise programs and release time  

• Professional Development: All employees have access to free LinkedIn Learning training, webinars, and limited financial support to attend conferences, workshops, and more   

• Educational release time and tuition assistance for completing a degree while a Texas A&M employee  

• Living Well, a program at Texas A&M that has been built by employees, for employees  

Instructions to Applicants: Applications received by Texas A&M University must either have all job application data entered, or a resume attached. Failure to provide all job application data or a complete resume could result in an invalid submission and a rejected application. We encourage all applicants to upload a resume or use a LinkedIn profile to prepopulate the online application.