HMS - Research Associate in Biomedical Informatics (Patel Lab)

School:

Harvard Medical School

Department/Area:

Biomedical Informatics

Position Description

Chirag Patel's group in the Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, is seeking a Research Associate with a focus in Biomedical Informatics for geneby-exposome interactions and therapeutic discovery. Seeking an individual with a PhD to conduct research in the area of biomedical informatics, multi-omic integratoin analytics and machine learning. In this role you will produce highly impactful biomedical informatics research that presents new innovations in methods and novel findings that inform disease etiology. The exposome is a promising and emerging modality to explain disease variation (papers in press in Nature Medicine) that impacts humans on all levels: from the single cell to populations, providing a rich substrate to do novel work. Candidates with experience in developing approaches to research and analyze large multi-modal datasets and who wish to deploy the next generation of exposome AI models are highly encouraged to apply. This position comes with data ready to analyze, and you can focus on developing research findings and writing papers from day 1.

Responsibilities include:

• Research and translate exposome data science into real-world clinical applications.
• Independently research and design exposome foundation models for disease physiology.
• Characterize how an individual's exposome drives variation in response to pharmaceutical intervention.
• Collaborate with interdisciplinary teams across Harvard (HSPH, HMS) and at partner universities to enhance data collection, cleaning, and integration processes, ensuring data accuracy and consistency.
• Produce engineering outputs, including databases, application programming interfaces, apps.
• Produce high-impact peer-reviewed articles, and presentations for academic and non-academic audiences.

Basic Qualifications

PhD in Data Science, Statistics, Computer Science, Epidemiology, Environmental Health, or related field.

Additional Qualifications

• Demonstrated expertise in large scale analysis and familiarity with health-related datasets.
• Proficiency in statistical software (R, Python, etc.), and working knowledge of data management protocols.
• Experience with exposome or environmental data, multiomics integration, and exposure-wide association studies (ExWAS) and GIS preferred

Special Instructions

Required documents:

• Curriculum Vitae
• Statement of Research for PhD work
• Cover Letter describing your interest in the lab and initial ideas for new research directions or projects you could undertake in the lab.
• Note with names and contact information for three people who have agreed to serve as your reference

Please submit application documents through the ARIeS portal. Selected candidates will be invited for in-person interviews involving a research presentation on past work.

Expected Dates

Duration: This is a one-year term position from the date of hire, with the possibility of extension, contingent upon work performance, business need, and continued funding to support the position.

Contact Information

Nichole Parker
10 Shattuck St
Boston, MA 02115

Contact Email: nichole_parker@hms.harvard.edu

Salary Range

$90K-$120K

Minimum Number of References Required: 3
Maximum Number of References Allowed: 3