Postdoc in public health sciences

Description

Due to the postdoctoral appointment’s nature as a career-development position for junior researchers, we are looking for candidates who have completed their PhD no more than three years before the application deadline.

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, Forte) and within the EU and National Institute of Health (NIH) in the US.

Duties

The position is central in two projects recently funded in the context of SELMA: 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 analyse 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. The position may also include teaching in relevant areas.

Qualification requirements

Applicants are required to hold a PhD (or a foreign degree equivalent to a Swedish doctorate) in bioinformatics or computational biology.

Qualifications obtained earlier may be considered if there are special grounds, such as sick leave, parental leave, clinical service, service as a union representative, military service or similar, or service/assignment of relevance to the appointment.

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. Particular emphasis will be given to candidates with DNA methylation experience using both array and sequencing technologies as well as DNA sequence 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). Strong practical skills in statistical analysis (dimensionality reduction, clustering, hypothesis testing, batch effect correction, FDR control) are also required, 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 consideration 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), and writing tests. The candidate's ability to document their work diligently is crucial to ensure easy knowledge transfer to other colleagues after their departure. The successful candidate should not only be able to implement these best programming practices but should also be expected to promote them within the workspace in order to foster a culture of code quality.

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

Assessment criteria

Verification is expected in the form of high-quality academic publications in international journals within the research field, documented experience in teaching and educational development, or contributions to open-source projects (e.g., a GitHub portfolio).

Special attention will be given to skills and experience in the analysis of large 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. Special attention is also placed on experience from international employment, assignments, or national and international networks.

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.

Valuable qualifications:

• Recognised or distinguished teaching and assessment skills.
• Completed course in higher education pedagogy

Terms

The employment is a temporary fixed term, full-time as a postdoc for 2 years. Employment will begin in November 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 jeopardise 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
HR-administratör
651 88 Karlstad

State the ref.no: REK2024/157

Application deadline: 2024-10-08

We look forward to your application!

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