Home » Job Posting (Page 2)
Category Archives: Job Posting
Doctoral Position: Musculoskeletal Simulation of Subjects with Lumbar Spinal Stenosis
Doctoral Position: Musculoskeletal Simulation of Subjects with Lumbar Spinal Stenosis
The Institute for Biomechanics (IfB) is dedicated to the biomechanical and mechanobiological study of the human body across all scales, to investigate and characterise structural and functional properties of the musculoskeletal system. We develop, refine and utilise multidisciplinary tools and concepts to translate knowledge and techniques into clinical practice for musculoskeletal repair or regeneration.
Project background
The Institute for Biomechanics invites applications for a doctoral position, as part of a translational project investigating spine biomechanics with a focus on lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS). This 4-year project will be carried out at the ETH Zurich in collaboration with the The Spine Research Group and the Functional Biomechanics Research group at the Department of Biomedical Engineering (DBE), University of Basel. The project aims to test the overall hypothesis that LSS affects spinal load and that this functional abnormality depends on anatomical, functional, physiological and biomechanical variations and therefore the severity of the disease. The doctoral candidate at ETH Zurich will be responsible for musculoskeletal simulations, based on existing models developed in-house, and processing data provided from in vivo movement biomechanics experiments conducted in Basel.
Job description
You will be responsible for conducting independent doctoral research on the topic of musculoskeletal biomechanics, with a focus on the lumbar spine. You will develop and apply multi-body dynamic simulation models for the determination of spinal loading in subjects with varying degrees of spinal pathology, for comparison with age-matched asymptomatic subjects. You will document and publish your research findings, towards the ultimate goal of the successful defence of your doctoral thesis.
Specific duties:
- Develop and successfully defend an independent research plan for your doctoral studies
- Develop, modify, validate and implement a multi-body dynamic simulation model of the human musculoskeletal system within the AnyBody simulation framework
- Collaborate with project partners at the University of Basel for defining and implementing data import schemes from laboratory motion analysis experiments
- Evaluate project-specific hypotheses on the relationship between spinal loading and the severity of lumbar spinal stenosis, in close collaboration with clinical partners
- Publish your research results in leading peer-reviewed scientific journals
- Advance the state of musculoskeletal simulation models by publishing your advances in a central public repository
- Supervise bachelor and master student projects in the focus area of your doctoral research
- (Potentially) contribute to teaching through tutorials on musculoskeletal simulation
Your profile
You are a highly motivated individual with a master’s or comparable degree in biomedical engineering or related discipline.
Essential expertise, skills and characteristics:
- Excellent grades
- Strong knowledge of (human) kinematics and kinetics
- Programming and/or simulation experience
- Ability to work in a multi-disciplinary team
- Ability to work independently, with flexibility, humour and critical thinking
- Excellent English language skills (comprehension, spoken and written)
Desirable expertise, skills and characteristics:
- Knowledge of musculoskeletal biomechanics and motion analysis
- Direct experience with AnyBody or OpenSim
- Publication(s) in a peer-reviewed scienfitic journal or conference proceeding
- Prior collaboration with clinicians
- German language skills
We offer
The position will be part of a research project funded for 4 years by the Swiss National Science Foundation. We offer an international, multidisciplinary work environment with excellent research infrastructure and a strong collaborative interaction with our project partners. Compensation will be according to the guidelines of the Swiss National Science Foundation (www.snf.ch) and internal Institute for Biomechanics policy. The expected start date is June 1, 2022.
ETH Zurich
Interested?
We look forward to receiving your online application with the following documents:
- Covering letter with statement of motivation
- CV
- Copy of bachelor and master transcripts
- Copy of MSc thesis
Please note that we exclusively accept applications submitted through our online application portal. Applications via email or postal services will not be considered. Applications will be submitted until February 28, 2022.
Further information about the Institute for Biomechanics can be found on our website www.biomech.ethz.ch. Questions regarding the position should be directed to Prof. Stephen Ferguson, email sferguson@ethz.ch (no applications).
In line with our values, ETH Zurich encourages an inclusive culture. We promote equality of opportunity, value diversity and nurture a working and learning environment in which the rights and dignity of all our staff and students are respected. Visit our Equal Opportunities and Diversity website to find out how we ensure a fair and open environment that allows everyone to grow and flourish.
Research Engineer/Sr. Research Engineer – Orthopaedics Research
Research Engineer/Sr. Research Engineer – Orthopaedics Research
Center for Orthopedic Research, Innovation and Training (CORIT) – Orthopedic Surgery, McGovern Medical School, Texas Medical Center-Houston, Texas
Position Summary:
Performs engineering functions related to independent research projects and collaborates with other researchers in science or engineering. Impacts design and coordination of research laboratory experiments.
Orthopaedics Research
Full Time
Exempt
TMC location
Strongly preferred skills/experience in mechanical design & analysis, finite element analysis (FEA).
Position Key Accountabilities:
- Provides technical engineering expertise in the performance of laboratory experiments, data collection, and analysis.
- Sets up new experiments and maintains and/or modifies current experiments by assessing experimental needs and arranges the use of equipment.
- Coordinates laboratory utilization and equipment sharing among various researchers.
- Researches options for new equipment and supplies.
- Modifies computer software, uses power tools, and fabricates small adapters and mounts.
- Assists with instrumentation development.
Certification/Skills:
- Ability to undertake complex and challenging projects.
- Excellent research and problem solving skills.
- Ability to use computer systems or specified equipment that is essential for the related areas.
- Ability to interact with scientists and researcher from other disciplines is crucial.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Ability to work independently and as a member of a multidisciplinary team.
Minimum Education:
Bachelor’s degree in engineering, computer and information science or other applied sciences.
Minimum Experience:
Two years experience in applied research or related field. May substitute required experience with equivalent years of education beyond the minimum education requirement.
Physical Requirements:
Exerts up to 20 pounds of force occasionally, and/or up to 10 pounds of force frequently, and/or negligible amount of force constantly to move objects.
This position may include work involving potentially hazardous chemical, biological or radioactive agents.
Security Sensitive:
This job class may contain positions that are security sensitive and thereby subject to the provisions of Texas Education Code § 51.215
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth)
Established in 1972 by The University of Texas System Board of Regents, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) is Houston’s Health University and Texas’ resource for health care education, innovation, scientific discovery and excellence in patient care. The most comprehensive academic health center in the UT System and the U.S. Gulf Coast region, UTHealth is home to schools of biomedical informatics, biomedical sciences, dentistry, nursing and public health and the John P. and Kathrine G. McGovern Medical School. UTHealth includes The University of Texas Harris County Psychiatric Center, as well as the growing clinical practices UT Physicians, UT Dentists and UT Health Services. The university’s primary teaching hospitals are Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital and Harris Health Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital.
UTHealth Benefits
UTHealth offers a comprehensive and competitive benefits package. For more information on our benefits programs please refer to the UTHealth Office of Benefits Website.
https://www.uth.edu/benefits/benefits-summary.htm
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
UTHealth is committed to providing equal opportunity in all employment-related activities without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, gender identity or expression, veteran status or any other basis prohibited by law or university policy. Reasonable accommodation, based on disability or religious observances, will be considered in accordance with applicable law and UTHealth policy. The University maintains affirmative action programs with respect to women, minorities, individuals with disabilities, and eligible veterans in accordance with applicable law.
As you may already know, UTHealth recently decided to take an important and necessary step to protect members of our community against COVID-19 by making COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for all employees, residents, fellows, contractors, and volunteers. Individuals subject to the vaccination requirement must be fully vaccinated on or by January 4th, 2022. Additionally, all members of our community—including students and visitors—are required to comply with our new COVID-19 Workplace Safety Protocol, which contains masking and physical distancing requirements that applies in certain settings depending on the individual’s vaccination status.
In addition, all UTHealth employees who are assigned to work at a location that is subject to the affiliated partner’s hospital, clinical offices, or agency are required to abide by UTHealth’s rules and regulations, as well as the affiliate’s rules and regulations, including COVID-19 vaccination requirements.
PhD position in inertial sensor-based movement analysis for personalized therapeutic interventions in patients with Parkinson’s disease
PhD position in inertial sensor-based movement analysis for personalized therapeutic interventions in patients with Parkinson’s disease
The Laboratory for Movement Biomechanics in the Department of Health Sciences and Technology of ETH Zurich is seeking a doctoral student for a project on personalized therapeutic interventions to improve gait and movement quality in patients with Parkinson’s disease. The position is fully funded by a recently awarded LOOP grant to Prof. Dr. Bill Taylor and the StimuLOOP research consortium.
Project background
About the lab:
The Laboratory for Movement Biomechanics and the Neuromuscular Biomechanics groupspecializes in the field of human movement science with approaches for assessing the quality of movement and functional performance. Our aim is to extract key information on an individual’s functional status and thereby lay the foundations for understanding and monitoring the degenerative changes that occur with musculoskeletal and neuromotor pathologies, but also the adaptation that results from ageing or rehabilitation. The development and validation of novel movement-based biomarkers has thereby enabled encompassing approaches to support clinical decision-making in the fields of gerontology, orthopaedics and neurology, but also opens perspectives on the objective assessment of both medical technologies and therapies alike.
About the project:
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is one of the most common neurological diseases in the elderly population and account for substantial disability and health care costs. Disability is largely driven by mobility deficits caused by impaired gait. Effective treatments to improve gait are available, but treatment response differs strongly between patients and often fails. This variability is caused by heterogeneity in disease and deficit phenotypes. Addressing this heterogeneity requires personalisation, a concept we refer to as precision neurorehabilitation.
With the StimuLOOP project, we want to introduce novel and highly personalized therapeutic interventions to improve gait and movement quality in PD patients, using state of the art technologies to provide real-time neurofeedback and enhance the consolidation of real-time learning through an innovative sleep intervention. Results from this project have strong implications for future research covering different deficits such as speech/language, cognition, arm function, and adaptive deep brain stimulation which will soon be technically possible and may be a major clinical improvement in Parkinson treatment.
Job description
We wish to recruit a PhD student to join our team and help us maximise the potential of our state-of-the-art wearable device (www.ZurichMOVE.com) and analytics for the comprehensive assessment of gait and movement characteristics in elderly subjects.
- Lead and support the data collection in the project through testing and trials
- Improve existing methods and develop new methods for the analysis of inertial-sensor data from both indoor movement tasks and real-world movement monitoring in both healthy and pathological populations.
- Contribute to the quantification of movement quality, in particular gait, to provide new and meaningful endpoints for clinical trials for personalizing therapeutic strategies in people with PD.
- Build machine learning and statistical models to extract gait signatures from movement patterns to associate an individual’s quality of movement with their underlying neural damage and resulting motor deficit.
- Supervise clinical measurements of movement using these technological developments in cohorts of PD subjects before and after neuro-rehabilitation therapy.
Your profile
Essential experience and characteristics:
- Experience with developing computational algorithms for inertial sensor-based movement analysis is necessary for this position.
- Good knowledge of statistics is required for quantitative reasoning and comparative analyses of cohort/subject specific data
- Proficient oral and written English skills (indicated by proven ability to write scientific papers and deliver conference presentations). Proficiency in German is considered a bonus. Strong inter-personal and communication skills are a pre-requisite.
- Experience with working in a biomechanics laboratory and handling motion capture systems, force plates, and processing software is a strong benefit, but not necessarily required.
The preferred starting date for this position is January 2022. The job will be located in and around Zürich, Switzerland.
Opportunities for personal growth:
- Grow your skills: the position entails working within a high-level scientific laboratory with strong colleagues, scientific collaborators, and clinical partners.
- Grow your academic career: mentor undergrad and grad students, grant writing, conference attendance and presentation, and network with experts within Zürich and worldwide.
- Switzerland is endowed with an extraordinary variety of natural landscape (mountains, lakes, and rivers) to switch off after work and build your skills outside workplace.
ETH Zurich
Interested?
We look forward to receiving your online application by 15th November 2021 including:
- A letter outlining your motivation to
- undertake a PhD
- apply for this specific position and how it aligns with your research interests / career goals
- join the Laboratory for Movement Biomechanics and ETH Zurich
- Curriculum Vitae
- Complete academic record with undergraduate and graduate courses and grades
- Contact information of 2-3 potential referees
The selection committee will review all applications within 2-3 weeks after the application deadline. As soon as a decision has been made, we will inform you about the next steps in the selection procedure.
Please note that we exclusively accept applications submitted through our online application portal. Applications via email or postal services will not be considered.
Questions regarding the position should be directed by email to Mr. Deepak Ravi, deepak.ravi@hest.ethz.ch (no applications).
In line with our values, ETH Zurich encourages an inclusive culture. We promote equality of opportunity, value diversity and nurture a working and learning environment in which the rights and dignity of all our staff and students are respected. Visit our Equal Opportunities and Diversity website to find out how we ensure a fair and open environment that allows everyone to grow and flourish.
Current News
