IIT Gandhinagar Post-Doctoral Fellow Recruitment 2026 - Advt No. IP/10358/Advt0278

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, Research & Development Office invites online applications for a temporary position of Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Cognitive and Brain Sciences. Interested candidates who fulfil the required qualifications and experience may apply through the IIT Gandhinagar project staff recruitment portal by 25 August 2026 (last date extended).

Position Details

Application Link

Apply online at recruitment.iitgn.ac.in/projectstaff.

Essential Qualification/Experience (as per Institute norms)

• Ph.D. in Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, Psychology, Computer Science, Robotics, AI, Mathematics, or a related discipline from a recognized institute. Candidates who have submitted their Ph.D. thesis on or before the last date of application are also encouraged to apply.
• Minimum 60% marks (or equivalent CGPA) from graduation onwards and 55% in Class X and XII, as per institute norms.
• The candidate must demonstrate expertise in at least one of the following research areas:
  • Human psychophysics (experiments studying visual perception, multisensory integration, motor learning/control tasks);
  • Computational and Cognitive neuroscience;
  • Reinforcement learning, Bayesian modeling, or probabilistic inference;
  • VR-based behavioral experiments.
• Strong programming skills in MATLAB and/or Python; experience in quantitative data analysis and statistical modeling.
• Ability to independently conduct research, design experiments, analyze data, and communicate scientific results.
• Good publication record in peer-reviewed journals and strong written and oral communication skills.

Desirable Qualification/Experience

• Experience in designing and conducting visual, multisensory, or motor psychophysics experiments.
• Expertise in experiment design using Psychtoolbox, PsychoPy, OpenXR, Unity.
• Conducting eye-tracking experiments.
• Robotic interfaces/split treadmill based motor learning experiments.
• Bayesian modeling, POMDPs, reinforcement learning, hierarchical Bayesian inference, contextual inference, or probabilistic graphical models.
• Model fitting, simulation, and statistical inference (MLE, MCMC, variational inference, mixed-effects models).
• Scientific software development and reproducible research workflows (Git, Linux, Python/MATLAB).
• Experience mentoring students and collaborating in interdisciplinary research.

Job Description

The successful candidate will contribute to establishing a new research program investigating natural behavior through the Resource-rational Context-dependent POMDP (RCP) framework. The research combines computational modeling with behavioral experiments to understand natural behavior. The candidate will participate in:

• Developing visual, multi-sensory, and motor-learning experiments using psychophysics, VR, eye tracking, and robotic interfaces.
• Designing behavioral paradigms investigating perception, learning, planning, decision making, and contextual inference.
• Developing computational models based on Bayesian inference, reinforcement learning, probabilistic modeling, and related approaches.
• Collecting and analyzing behavioral datasets.
• Building experimental and computational pipelines for reproducible research.
• Contributing to publications and external research grant proposals.

Depending on the candidate expertise and interests, the position may emphasize experimental neuroscience, computational modeling, or an integration of both.

Contact

For query, please contact: Prof. Sabyasachi Shivkumar - Email: sabyashiv@iitgn.ac.in

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