[Comp-neuro] Australian Research Council - Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (postdoctoral fellowships)

Call for Expressions of Interest: Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRAs)

Brain and Behaviour Research at the MARCS Institute

In 2013 the Australian Research Council (ARC) will award up to 200 three-year Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRAs) providing salary and project costs to successful applicants who have been awarded their PhD within 5 years or within 8 years with a period of significant career interruption (see arc.gov.au/ncgp/decra.htm for further information).

The MARCS Institute

At the MARCS Institute, a vibrant interdisciplinary Research Institute of the University of Western Sydney, we will work with early career researchers to develop highly competitive DECRA applications to conduct research in our well-equipped research environment in any of our 5 research programs:

 

·       Bioelectronics & Neuroscience: computational and electronic modelling to reverse engineer the brain and biomedical instrumentation design.

·       Human Machine Interaction: Believability of virtual agents' behaviour in cyber-physical worlds; cyber-physical interfaces, natural interaction between virtual and physical worlds.

·       Multisensory Processing: Research investigating brain and behaviour to understand the processes by which sensory information is combined, represented and acted upon.

·       Music Cognition & Action: Investigation of the temporal dynamics in individual and group performance and perception of music and dance

·       Speech & Language: Research within and between languages, with infants, children and adults focussing on speech perception, speech production, and related skills such as literacy

The MARCS Institute is 100-person strong, 1500m2 research hub with >$3.5M of specialist equipment for conducting behavioural, neuroscience, and computational research on human-human and human-machine communication in normal, heightened and degraded contexts. MARCS is involved in a range of national and international research collaborations and industry partnerships and the MARCS team includes members and collaborators from Medicine, Neuroscience, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, Linguistics, Psychology, Education, Music, and Communication Arts. More information about MARCS' research and researchers can be found at marcs.uws.edu.au.

Expressions of Interest submission

MARCS will offer expert assistance to DECRA applications where these fit closely with one or more aspects of our research program. Please consult the Institute's website (marcs.uws.edu.au/research) for further details of the Institute's research program.

Applicants seeking the endorsement of MARCS need to complete an Expression of Interest form and forward it by 1 October 2013 (which is earlier than the date advised on the form). These form can be obtained from and should be returned to UWS Senior Project Development Manager Annette McLaren (a.mclaren@uws.edu.au).

Prospective applicants are advised to contact Annette McLaren before completing the Expression of Interest for guidance regarding the fit between their proposed project and the Institute's research, and the levels of research performance that applicants will need to demonstrate. Please include in your email a copy of your current CV including the award date of your PhD and a brief (1 paragraph) outline of your proposed project.

André van Schaik