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