Project assistant Research, Public Health Sciences - Hiring in process/Finished, not possible to apply

Description

Public health science belongs to the Department of Health Sciences at the Faculty of Health, Nature and Technology at Karlstad University. In public health science, research and teaching is conducted with a focus on children's life and health. This is conducted within three medical tracks; an environmental medicine track with a focus on environmental factors early in life and their importance for health and development in children, a community medicine track that focuses on vulnerable children, violence in close relationships and health-promoting environments, as well as a track in medical science that includes, among other things anatomy, physiology and pathology.

On the subject, there are several recognized and well-qualified researchers with a high scientific output, together with currently seven doctoral students. Of importance for the current position is the SELMA study, a pregnancy cohort which follows more than 2,000 mother-child pairs from early pregnancy through childbirth and later in life with a focus on environmental factors, genetics/epigenetics and children's health and development in the broadest sense (www.selmastudien.se). Our research in SELMA takes place in close collaboration with world-leading institutions in Sweden and the rest of the world, where we connect our epidemiological studies with experimental toxicology in cell and animal models for new knowledge on biological mechanisms and development of better risk assessment systems for hazardous chemicals. The research is funded by research councils nationally (Swedish Research Council, Formas) and within the EU and the US-NIH.

Duties

The position is central in two projects recently funded in the context of SELMA starting in 2023: Firstly, a large international EU project, RE-MEND, which aims to identify resilience markers against mental illness across endocrine-sensitive life stages and includes 15 international partners, and secondly, Epi- Clock, a project focusing on the role of the prenatal environment in setting epigenetic clocks in children and examining if such changes in the epi-genetic clock is associated to children´s neurodevelopment.

Karlstad University’s role in these and other projects is to analyze and interpret the data generated in the SELMA cohort in the context of the biological questions posed. The successful candidate will be central to the establishment of the analytical pipelines that make use of the relevant SELMA data, work closely together with the clinicians and other experts required to interpret the results, and establish new research projects making use of the SELMA and other cohorts.

To contribute to a good working environment and development of the business, you are present and participate in the daily work and the community.

The position is an opportunity for you to work 100% with research in an international environment with a successful project.

Qualifications

For employment, applicants are required to hold a Doctoral degree (or a foreign degree equivalent to a Swedish doctorate) in bioinformatics and computational biology or a related field.

To be eligible for the position, applicants must also have practical experience in computational biology with a focus on large cohort analyses and a deep understanding of at least one, and ideally several OMICs technologies and their analysis. Since this position involves frequent interactions with clinicians, we highly value candidates with a basic understanding of human physiology and molecular biology, who can effectively communicate their work in a pedagogical manner.

Applicants must be experienced in analyzing large clinical datasets, which implies proficiency in at least one programming language (preferably R or Python), solid skills in data cleaning, visualization (e.g., pandas, matplotlib, ggplot, plotly), and scripting in a Linux environment (Bash).  

Good written and oral knowledge of English is required for this position.

Assessment criteria

Special weight will be given to:

Special weight will be given to strong practical skills in statistical analysis (dimensionality reduction, clustering, hypothesis testing, batch effect correction, FDR control), as well as previous practical experience in predictive modeling and machine learning.

In order to ensure the reproducibility and reusability of the codebase, we will give special weight to candidates with prior experience in using containerization technologies (e.g., Docker, Singularity), workflow management systems (e.g., Nextflow, Snakemake), software packaging (Conda/PyPi or Bioconductor), as well as version control (Git).

Your ability to document the work diligently is crucial to ensure easy knowledge transfer to other colleagues after their departure.

Special weight will be given to high-quality academic publications in international journals within the research field and contributions to open-source projects (e.g., a GitHub portfolio).

Special weight will also be given to skills and experience in the analysis of large scale clinical data, with a focus on predictive modeling, programming, the development of reproducible bioinformatics pipelines, and associated knowledge of molecular biology tools and sequencing techniques.

Considerable weight will be given to:

Considerable weight will be given to communication skills, the ability to collaborate with colleagues, sound judgment, responsibility, dedication, and a positive attitude towards colleagues and students.

Terms

It is a temporary fixed term employment, full-time (100%), for six months. The employment can be extended. Employment will begin on January 1st 2024.

Application

Submit the application via the university’s web-based recruitment tool, Varbi. For advice on how to draft your application, refer to “What should be included with my application?”

Applicants are responsible for submitting a complete application in accordance with the advertisement, for providing translations of any documents written in a language other than Swedish or English, and for ensuring that the documentation allows for objective and qualitative assessments. A complete application should be submitted by the application deadline. An incomplete application may jeopardies a fair assessment of qualifications.

The application should include:

• CV
• cover letter describing the applicant’s qualifications and research interests in relation to the duties of the position,
• a list of publications (in multi-authored publications, the role of the applicant must be specified)
• copies of relevant transcripts, degree certificates, certificates to corroborate previous employment, and letters of recommendation
• copy of doctoral thesis and other relevant publications
• language proficiency certificates
• two references, at least one of which is a current or former supervisor

Attach all the documents and publications you wish to be considered to the electronic application (do not just provide links). Name each uploaded document to clearly indicate its content.

Documents that cannot be submitted electronically, such as books or publications, should be sent to: Karlstads universitet, Hanna Ljungdahl, 651 88 Karlstad

State the ref.no: REK2023/229

Application deadline: 2023-11-09

We look forward to your application!

Karlstad University has chosen advertising channels for this recruitment and firmly declines any contact with advertising or recruitment agencies.