Postdoctoral Fellow

PRIMARY DETAIL

We are seeking an exceptional Researcher, with a strong and growing track record in analytics of time-series data, to support an exciting new research project that aims to understand and support listening in neurodivergent populations. We encourage and welcome neurodivergent people or people with lived experience to apply.

THE ROLE-
- Appointment type: Full-time, fixed-term position for 2 years- Macquarie University (Wallumattagal Campus, North Ryde)

BACKGROUND

Listening is essential to understanding. Without it, sound is meaningless—a wash of noise and reflections from competing sources. Humans navigate an astonishing range of soundscapes and listening spaces with remarkable ease, surpassing even the most advanced technologies, but it is not obvious how we do this. This lack of fundamental knowledge shackles the performance of the many listening algorithms and devices available today and limits their potential to support our communication needs in an increasingly noisy world. This is particularly so for otherwise “normal” hearing individuals who have challenges with speech comprehension in background noise and who often struggle to parse complex listening environments; autistic people, those diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), and the increasing number of adults reporting ‘hidden hearing loss, for example, challenges with speech-in-noise despite passing ‘pin-drop hearing’ assessments. For these individuals and others, understanding the neural bases of listening and developing new technologies and approaches to enhance listening experience and reduce listening fatigue and frustration offers an avenue back to a rich and rewarding communicative life.

THE ROLE

A 2-year postdoctoral position is available to work with world leading researchers to explore the listening brain in humans, through analysis of spatial and time-series brain data derived from magneto-encephalography (MEG) imaging, electroencephalography (EEG), and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). To enrich our research process, our work takes a participatory approach and is co-produced with the autism and neurodivergent communities.

ABOUT US

MU Hearing is a university-wide initiative and community, which aims to be a world-leading research centre in hearing health using a multidisciplinary and community-engaged approach to solving major hearing and listening issues that translate into measurable and impactful change.

The Neurodiversity Program of MU Hearing has the broad primary goal of exploring listening and the listening brain in neurodivergent groups including those with autism, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, and acquired listening conditions resulting from, for example, exposure to loud sounds. By developing a holistic model of listening, from biophysical processes to behaviours, we will:
understand communication challenges experienced by neurodivergent listeners develop new strategies tailored to an individual listener’s needs bridge performance gap between current and future listening technologies and supports Provide a framework for exploring how humans experience the sensory world through sound

To Apply

Required qualification and experience- PhD in Computer Science or related area of Computational Sciences, Neuroscience, or Engineering;- Good track record of research evidence by publications and presentations at international conferences;- Experience with audio signals or other perceptual processing (Matlab, Python or other scientific programming).- Experience in machine-learning approaches to data analytics, especially for time-series data.

Desirable Experience- Lived experience of autism or other neurodivergent condition- Published Code

Specific Role Enquiries: Distinguished Professor David McAlpine

Applications Close: Sunday, 16 Jun 2024 at 11.55 pm

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Applications Close:
16/06/2024 11:59 PM

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