Internships and Master theses

Internships

Compartmentalized learning via coupled electrochemical adaptation

The Computational Neuroscience & Neural Computation (CNNC) lab is seeking two enthusiastic and highly motivated Research Assistants to join the lab in Coimbra, working on the FCT-funded project “HetSyn: Compartmentalized learning via coupled electrochemical adaptation”. They have two 1-year scholarships open for applications.

Scholarship 1:
For students enrolled in a Master’s degree. Deadline: June 5. More information here (document download).

Scholarship 2:
For Master’s degree holders or students enrolled in a doctoral degree. Deadline: late June. More information here (document download).

Location

Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, Center for Innovative Biomedicine and Biotechnology

University of Coimbra, Portugal

Contact

Renato Duarte

CaCTüS Internship – Tübingen

The sciences of biological and artificial intelligence are rapidly growing research fields that need enthusiastic minds with a keen interest in solving challenging questions. The Max Planck Institutes for Biological Cybernetics and Intelligent Systems and the Tübingen AI Center offer up to 10 students at the Bachelor or Master level paid three-months internships during the summer. Successful applicants will work with top-level scientists on research projects spanning machine learning, electrical engineering, theoretical neuroscience, behavioral experiments and data analysis. The CaCTüS Internship is aimed at young scientists who are held back by personal, financial, regional or societal constraints to help them develop their research careers and gain access to first-class education. The programme is designed to foster inclusion, diversity, equity and access to excellent scientific facilities. We specifically encourage applications from students living in low- and middle-income countries which are currently underrepresented in our research community.

Who can apply?
The CaCTüS Internship specifically addresses motivated students who are constrained by personal, financial, regional or societal issues that negatively affect their future education.

Location

Biological Cybernetics and Intelligent Systems and the Tübingen AI Center
Tübingen, Germany

Contact

Coordination Office
Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics
cactus-internship@tuebingen.mpg.de

BCCN Berlin Pre-Doc Internship Program

This Pre-Doc Internship Program aims to encourage and support especially talented students from developing countries in the transition from their master studies to their doctoral studies. Interns will have the chance to come to Berlin, Germany, for a paid, six-month Pre-Doc internship. The internship program provides access to first-class scientific labs and institutions, state-of-the-art research, and scientific network in one of Germany’s leading computational neuroscience research hubs.

Who can apply?
Master
students in their final stage or after graduation, who completed their studies outside Germany.

Location

BCCN Berlin
Berlin, Germany

Contact

Lisa Velenosi
graduateprograms@bccn-berlin.de

Singularity Detection and Mitigation in Analytic Integrators

In this project, you will extend ODE-toolbox to detect the potential occurrence of singularities in the generated propagator matrices, and mitigate this problem by computing a set of propagator matrices and the conditions under which each is valid. (A simple singularity detection is implemented since the latest version but could be improved.) An application programming interface (API) should be developed that supports returning the new data structures. Additional unit tests should be provided to demonstrate the correctness of the result.

Who can apply?
Bachelor
students in the fields of computer science, maths, or related fields.

Location

Simulation Lab Neuroscience
Forschungszentrum Jülich

Contact

Charl Linssen
c.linssen@fz-juelich.de

Computational Systems Neuroscience – Cologne

The department of Computational Systems Neuroscience welcomes undergrad students from the fields of Biology, Neuroscience, Computer Science, Physics, or Engineering to participate in their research. They are offering projects in computational and experimental neuroscience, including modeling studies, studies in animal behavior and in neurophysiology.

Location

University of Cologne

Contact

Martin Nawrot
nawrot-office@uni-koeln.de

Sensory and Sensorimotor Systems – Tübingen

The Department of Sensory and Sensorimotor Systems at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics and University of Tübingen is happy to offer positions, projects, and trainings to students interested in various projects in our labs.

Our department, led by Prof. Li Zhaoping works mainly on visual and olfactory functions in the human and animal brain and their elicited behavioral responses, but we also work on other related topics in brain science. Research methods include visual psychophysics, computational modeling, data analysis, human event related potential measurements, fMRI and eye tracking.

Who can apply?
If you are not from the University of Tübingen, we unfortunately cannot admit you for projects/internships unless you could arrange yourself for your funding, accommodation, travel (and visa if required), and any other academic and logistic needs.

Location

Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics Tübingen
Tübingen, Germany

Contact

Head of the department
Li Zhaoping
zhaoping.li.admin@tuebingen.mpg.de

Computational Neuroscience group – Bochum

The computational neuroscience group researches on the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying learning and memory using computational methods. Internships in our group are in principle possible throughout the year for a duration of minimum two months.

Location

Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Bochum, Germany

Contact

Viviana Haase
viviana.haase@rub.de

High performance computing (HPC)

The Simulation and Data Lab Neuroscience offers students an insight into the world of High-Performance Computing (HPC) and how HPC can be efficiently used for neuroscience research, from modelling and simulation to data analysis and neuroimaging. Visiting students should have some programming skills, e.g. in C, C++ or Python, to be able to use their visit for a (first) project with HPC and/or data resources.

Skills to be learned: high-performance computing, data analysis, visualisation technology for neuroscience

Required skills: programming

Location

Jülich Supercomputing Centre

Contact

Scientific coordination
Maren Frings
slns@fz-juelich.de

Master theses

Neural Data Science group (Ecker lab)

The Neural Data Science group led by Alexander Ecker works at the interface of machine learning and computational neuroscience. We develop new methods and algorithms to make sense of large-scale neuroscience data. Moreover, we work on novel approaches to computer vision based on insights we gain from biological vision. The lab welcomes applications for Bachelor’s and Master’s theses.

Who can apply?
Students enrolled at the University of Göttingen with substantial knowledge in machine learning, its mathematical foundations and Python programming,

Ort

Georg August University Göttingen – Institute of Computer Science
Goldschmidtstraße 1
37077 Göttingen
Germany

Kontakt

Marita Schwahn
marita.schwahn@cs.uni-goettingen.de

Bernstein Center Freiburg

The Bernstein Center Freiburg (BCF) is a multidisciplinary research hub for Computational Neuroscience and Neurotechnology at the University of Freiburg. It was established in 2010 as the central scientific facility to coordinate computational neuroscience and neurotechnology research at the University of Freiburg. At the BCF, we practice computational neuroscience as a hypothesis-driven research approach to decipher mechanisms of brain function and dysfunction using theory, simulation, and experiment, each synergistically complementing the other.

The BCF combines a number of third-party funded research projects in the experimental and theoretical neurosciences into a single multidisciplinary research hub. The Center integrates fundamental and applied research in neurobiology, mathematics and physics, computer science, microsystems technology, behavioral sciences, and the clinical sciences, pursued at multiple faculties, institutes and research facilities of the University. The BCF also fosters and implements new teaching and training initiatives, in particular the multidisciplinary international PhD and PostDoc program in Computational Neuroscience and Neurotechnology, as well as local and transnational MSc programs in Neuroscience.

Please contact the individual scientists if you are interested in a student position.

Ort

Bernstein Center Freiburg, University of Freiburg
Freiburg, Germany

Contact

contact@bcf.uni-freiburg.de

Computational Neuroscience – Bochum

How do humans and animals navigate in space? How are past experiences stored and retrieved in the brain? In our group, we look for answers to these questions by investigating how agents learn to solve tasks in simulated environments and by performing advanced data analysis. All projects are related to our ongoing research. Hence, they broadly focus on spatial navigation and episodic memory and use either reinforcement learning or spiking neural networks. Your research will be embedded in a larger project that is being pursued by your supervisor, a doctoral student or a postdoc in the group. However, if you have an idea that you would like to develop we would be happy to work with you.

Required skills
Proficiency in at least one modern programming language (preferably Python) and familiarity with common concepts like OOP, procedural programming, etc; basic math skills, i.e. calculus, linear algebra, statistics; proficiency in English; ability to work independently; enthusiasm for scientific research.

Location

University of Bochum, Institute for Neuroinformatics
Bochum, Germany

Contact

Science Manager
Vinita Samarasinghe
samarasinghe@ini.rub.de