Center for Injury Biomechanics, Materials, and Medicine

Posted October 26, 2016

Immediately seeking a postdoctoral associate to lead projects within the Laboratory for Traumatic Brain Injury and Laboratory for Neural Development, Injury and Repair, both within the NJIT Center for Injury Biomechanics Materials and Medicine (CIBM3)

This position will focus on projects on injury biomechanics under blast wave and blunt impact conditions. Projects include developing full scale human models and animal models for blast and blunt injury. Skills required are the ability to develop and assemble experimental set ups, apply measurement instrumentation, data acquisition as well as kinetic and kinematic analysis. The large effort in the Center will also allow for training in the many areas of TBI research.

Key Responsibilities: This position will independently work on research goals to meet the commitments of current projects and grants. Timely dissemination of research findings. Training will include leading research groups of graduates and undergraduates, managing laboratory dynamics, grant writing and scholarship activities. Independent proposal writing will also be supported as a path to independence.

Skills and Qualifications: Ph.D. in Biomedical or Mechanical Engineering or appropriate discipline. Background appropriate for the position include: biomechanics, mechanical behavior of materials, tissue culture, and animal modeling. Exposure to models of traumatic brain injury preferred.

BME is a research active department with 16 tenured/tenure-track faculty including three NSF CAREER recipients (and one PECASE). Research areas include head injury biomechanics, neural engineering and rehabilitation, biomedical imaging, cellular/molecular tissue engineering and biomaterials. These form a comprehensive neural engineering research focus that spans cellular to systems levels in the areas of neural damage and repair, neural computation, direct brain interfacing, neural signal processing, neurorehabilitation and tissue engineering orthopaedic and cardiac applications. Research is funded by NIH, NSF, DoD, NIDRR, NJ Commissions on Brain Injury and Spinal Cord Research and private foundations. Our doctoral degree is a joint program with the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark with over 50 PhD candidates. Our master’s program is one of the largest in the country with approximately 120 students and our undergraduate program serves about 300 students and is ABET accredited. 

NJIT offers a rich intellectual environment; departments of physics, mathematical and biological science have outstanding capabilities in cellular biology and biophysics as well as neural modeling and signal processing. NJIT’s strengths are complemented by excellent programs at the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Rutgers University-Newark, the New Jersey Medical School, Rutgers University Newark and the Public Health Research Institute, all within walking distance of NJIT. We also have extensive collaborations at the nearby Kessler Rehabilitation Institute and VA hospital in East Orange.

To apply, please send a cover letter highlighting research and long-­term goals, a detailed CV, and the names and email addresses of three references to Bryan Pfister, PhD, pfister@njit.edu. Candidates must also apply online at https://njit.jobs. On the Home Screen, select the Grant Funded button and apply for Postdoctoral Research Associate position dated October 26, 2016 (Posting 0603667).