Deadline: 2018-06-01
Location: Ashburn, Virginia, United States
Type: Academic staff
Job Summary:
The Advanced Imaging Center (AIC) at Janelia Research Campus is jointly sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF). Our mission is to make cutting-edge, pre-commercial microscopes developed at Janelia available to visiting scientists, maximizing the impact of the latest developments in optical instruments and emerging microscopy technologies.
This is an imaging center with open access on a global scale, and the AIC team provides pre-submission technical consultation to applicants, preliminary technical review of proposals, management of pre-arrival logistical and technical support, coordinating provision of Janelia ancillary support from Janelia shared resources, on-site hands-on technical support in image acquisition, as well as image processing and analysis. The AIC continues to serve as a fertile platform in developing and optimizing all aspects of biological imaging, from sample preparation and protocol development to imaging and analysis, for a broad variety of scientific studies.
Principal Responsibilities:
The Advanced Imaging Specialist will work hands-on in the laboratory with AIC users. The Specialist will be a primary source of applications knowledge and expertise for all AIC users, and will become expert in the operation and use of various AIC instruments, as well as processing and analysis of the resulting data.
Specific responsibilities include:
- Provide technical consultation to prospective applicants to the AIC prior to proposal submission.
- Serve on AIC Technical Review Panel to review the feasibility and technical justification of the submitted proposals.
- Collaborate with AIC users to understand the objectives and requirements of their scientific imaging needs, planning for effective visits to the AIC.
- Coordinate with Janelia shared resources and other ancillary support divisions to facilitate sample shipments into the AIC.
- Work hands-on with AIC users to prepare, fix, label, mount, and image samples, often involving multiple iterations of optimization and evaluation.Analyze samples and approaches to evaluate technical suitability of AIC systems for individual visiting scientists.
- Prepare application-specific tools and techniques to enable imaging, analysis, and data representation to meet user needs.
- Operate, maintain and troubleshoot AIC microscopes at expert level for the benefit of users.
- Optimize microscope configurations for a wide variety of imaging applications and samples.
- Interpret images and scientific results to propose and perform subsequent experiments and procedures. This will involve a combination of software analysis tools, collaboration with AIC users, and intuition developed through significant experience in biological imaging.
Qualifications:
- Ph.D. in Biology, Biochemistry, or related field, or equivalent in education and experience required.
- Strong experience in advanced optical microscopy experience, with focus on super-resolution microscopy and live cell imaging applications.
- Minimum of five years of hands-on experience in biological sample preparation and imaging required
- Ability to operate complex custom imaging instrumentation required.
- Ability to troubleshoot and resolve issues with sample preparation, imaging system performance, configuration and usage, in order to produce superior imaging results for AIC users required.
- Experience using super resolution, selective plane, confocal, or multifocal imaging technologies preferred.
- Experience in image processing and analysis methods, including development of custom algorithms, is preferred.
- Experience in using scripting languages (e.g. Java, Matlab, Python, C+) is preferred; not required but ideal candidates will have prior experience in developing custom algorithms for data analysis.
- Ability to effectively communicate both remotely and in-person (written and verbal) with AIC users, sharing outcomes of evaluations and experiments, and guiding future efforts to optimize results required.
- Ability to evaluate proposals for technical feasibility and manage progress on many projects concurrently.
- Ability to perform long, iterative sessions of imaging and analysis and data interpretation required.
- Ability to collaborate closely with AIC users, providing training, experimental design, and execution, as well as data analysis and interpretation required.