Our postdoctoral scholars program provides research support and a community of mentors and peers to extraordinary Stanford postdocs advancing our understanding of the mind and brain in health and disease.
Our postdoctoral scholars program provides research support and a community of mentors and peers to extraordinary Stanford postdocs advancing our understanding of the mind and brain in health and disease. Our postdoctoral scholars program provides research support and a community of mentors and peers to extraordinary Stanford postdocs advancing our understanding of the mind and brain in health and disease.
Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Scholar Award
Since 2015, the Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Scholars program has supported innovative young researchers who engage in highly interdisciplinary research in the neurosciences, broadly defined. Our postdoctoral scholars have backgrounds in basic and clinical neurosciences, biomedical sciences, physical sciences, social sciences, engineering, education, law, business and humanities, and are all engaged in cutting edge research that will advance our understanding of the mind, brain and behavior in health and disease.
Brain Resilience Postdoctoral Scholar Award of the Knight Initiative
The Brain Resilience Postdoctoral Scholars award of the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience generate paradigm shifting insights on the mechanisms of neurodegeneration and/or how to maintain brain resilience into old age.
Application Components
Our next postdoc applications will open in Winter Quarter 2024.
This program is open to current Stanford postdocs.
Our Model
This program awards two years of fellowship funding and is pleased to provide parental leave. Postdoctoral scholars also receive $5,000 of discretionary research funds annually.
Mentorship
The program provides scientific and career-growth opportunities and guidance under the leadership of program co-directors and faculty mentors Professors Miriam Goodman and Liqun Luo. Scholars meet monthly with their cohort and program faculty mentors to share ideas and discuss approaches to scientific and career challenges, visit each other’s labs to learn about different research techniques and areas of study, and practice communicating their research to scientific and general audiences.
In addition, Brain Resilience Postdoctoral Scholars attend events and seminars hosted by the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience, and are stewarded by Knight Initiative Associate Director Natasha Hussain and faculty mentor Elizabeth Mormino to learn from one another and build community around the topic of neurodegeneration and brain resilience.
Diversity
The Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute Postdoctoral program brings together cohorts of postdocs representing the broad range of demographic, experiential and scientific diversity. Women and postdocs from groups underrepresented in the neurosciences are strongly encouraged to apply.
| Key Dates for 2024 POSTDOCTORAL Scholar Awards | |
|---|---|
| Application Opens | Friday, August 11, 2023 |
| Application Deadline | Sunday, September 24, 2023, at 5:00pm PST Including faculty sponsor statement(s) and recommendation letters |
| Notification of Awards | Late November, 2023 |
| Award Start Date | Funding may begin between February 1, 2024 and June 1, 2024 |
Funding Period | Two years of funding from start date |
| To Apply | Apply here |
Funded Interdisciplinary Postdoctoral Scholar projects
Multifunctional vascular-like electronics for integration and monitoring of human neural organoids
This study will introduce a vascular-like electronic system that merges seamlessly with neural organoids,
establishing an integrated vascular-electronic-neural network. This envisaged platform holds the promise of heralding a transformative phase in the evolution of human neural organoid research and elucidating the
fundamental understanding on the roles of oxygen and nutrient perfusion during neural development.
Microglia-Mediated Astrocyte Activation in Chronic Pain
While acute pain is an important biological signal in response to injured tissue, chronic pain occurs when the pain signaling outlasts the initial injury and has deleterious effects on health and quality of life. Chronic pain represents an enormous public health burden with few therapeutic options.
Simultaneous 15O-PET and MRI of cerebral blood flow and cerebrovascular reserve
Continuous blood flow to the brain is needed for neural tissues to survive. Noninvasive imaging of cerebral blood flow (CBF) in humans is challenging, but is critically useful to understand normal brain physiology and to help patients with cerebrovascular disorders such as stroke.
Engineering nanoscale optical transducers of mechanical signals in the nervous system
Communication between cells in the nervous system regulates the senses, memory, and information processing. Using electrical and biochemical sensors, such as patch clamps, voltage-sensitive dyes, and calcium-sensitive dyes, scientists have mapped with extraordinary detail the interactions of the nervous system.
Funded Brain Resilience Postdoctoral Scholar projects
High-resolution profiling of Alzheimer’s brain resilience
Resilience to Alzheimer’s disease (RAD) describes those rare individuals who exhibit normal cognitive function
while harboring a high disease burden. Better understanding of the mechanisms that confer protection against
cognitive decline despite high-level AD pathology offers potential therapeutic insights for preventing dementia in AD. Recent advances in the field provide a unique opportunity to explore the spatial distribution of molecules in the human brain at an unprecedented level of detail.
Rejuvenating sleep to enhance brain resilience with age
Sleep is a critical behavioral state that fulfills essential needs for health, including clearing waste products (e.g., protein aggregates) from the brain. But sleep is not everlasting. As humans age, sleep quality strikingly deteriorates, and this decline is associated with dementias (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease).
Determining the role of circadian transcriptional control in myelin-forming precursors in neurodegeneration
The causes of neurodegenerative disorders like multiple sclerosis or Alzheimer’s disease are incompletely understood, hindering our ability to gain precise diagnoses and design effective therapeutics. Understanding how the circadian rhythms regulate myelin-forming precursors will impart unique insights into normal and aberrant myelination and will have a positive impact on developing therapeutic strategies to restructure myelin.
The origin of neurodegeneration: insight from a unique colonial chordate
With an aging population, neurodegenerative disorders contribute increasingly to our global health burden with no cure or effective treatments. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are two neurodegenerative disorders that are distinct in clinical presentation (ALS impairs movement/breathing, whereas FTD impairs behavior/cognition).