Assistant​/Associate​/Project Scientist - Instrumentation Microscopy - Advanced Bioimaging C

Position overview

Position title: Project Scientist

Salary range: The UC academic salary scales set the minimum pay determined by rank and step  the following table for the current salary scale for this position: https://(Use the "Apply for this Job" box below). A reasonable estimate for this position is $146,700 - $204,600.

Percent time: 100%

Anticipated start: Winter/Spring 2026

Position duration: Initial appointment is for one year with the possibility of renewal based on performance and funding availability.

Open date: February 24, 2026

Next review date: Tuesday, Mar 10, 2026 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time). Apply by this date to ensure full consideration by the committee.

Final date: Friday, Mar 27, 2026 at 11:59pm (Pacific Time). Applications will continue to be accepted until this date, but those received after the review date will only be considered if the position has not yet been filled.

The Advanced Bio Imaging Center (ABC) in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley seeks applications for two Project Scientist at the Assistant, Associate, or full rank. The selected candidate will be appointed at the rank commensurate with prior experience. The position will report to Professor Gokul Upadhyayula, with Professor Eric Betzig serving as an additional academic mentor.

The project scientist will make significant and creative contributions in the area of molecular and cellular microscopy research.

The Advanced Bio Imaging Center (ABC) at UC Berkeley aspires to be a world-leading multidisciplinary imaging center that drives important biological discoveries through critical new advances in all aspects of imaging technology and that drives the dissemination of that technology through a multi-pronged education strategy to scientists around the world. ABC was intentionally designed to maximize scientific productivity and impact by adopting groundbreaking imaging technologies such as the next-generation adaptive optical multifunctional microscope, incorporating the high-level technical expertise of instrumentation scientists, applied mathematicians, and computational scientists, and building worldwide collaborations aimed at tackling the challenges posed by terabyte and petabyte-scale imaging data processing, visualization, and dissemination.

Members of the ABC have access to leading‑edge imaging and computing hardware, as well as exposure to collaborators from a range of diverse disciplines, including the fields of Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Mathematics, and more.

The purpose of this project is to develop a foundation AI model capable of extracting biological insights from 4D (x,y,z,time) datasets of subcellular dynamics within physiological contexts and across scales. Incumbent will advance imaging to generate petabytes of targeted and high‑quality datasets necessary to prototype and build this model. The Assistant/Associate/Full Project Scientists will help develop and execute the research program focused around ABC's overarching goal of moving cell biology away from the coverslip and into physiological systems.

These positions will work within a dedicated team to develop and refine the microscopy techniques. This position will manage projects and provide regular progress reports to PIs and collaborators.

The incumbent will spend 90% of their time on ABC research goals and managing and maintaining equipment in the lab and 10% of their time training/supervising collaborators, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows on MOSAIC/iAOLLSM capabilities.

• Make significant and creative contributions to designing, building, and testing of a new high throughput adaptive optical inverted lattice light-sheet microscope (iAO-LLSM). This instrument aims to achieve a 10-fold increase in data acquisition throughput while maintaining the high-quality optical performance demonstrated in our previous work.
• Use, maintain, and oversee the operations of the two next-generation multimodal optical scopes with adaptive imaging correction (MOSAIC) microscopes at…