Post Doc Res Assoc- Occupational Health

Job Summary

Dr. Ryan Olson is seeking a highly motivated Postdoctoral Research Associate to contribute to his nationally recognized interdisciplinary program of research on occupational health interventions for isolated workers. Dr. Olson is an Occupational Health Psychologist and Professor at the Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health. This multi-disciplinary Center is affiliated with the Division of Occupational and Environmental Health in the School of Medicine at the University of Utah. He is a charter member and inaugural fellow of the Society for Occupational Health Psychology. Current and planned topics of study in the Olson lab include interventions addressing health behaviors and body weight management, sleep health, chronic pain management, and organizational readiness to implement occupational and environmental health interventions. Current and planned populations of study include active-duty military personnel, bus operators, home care workers, and patients with co-morbid sleep disturbance and chronic pain.

The ideal candidate will have strong skills in conducting literature reviews, manuscript planning and writing, data management, data analysis, and supervision and mentoring of more junior research staff. Core responsibilities of the position will be conducting data processing and analysis for studies, preparation and submission of manuscripts to peer-reviewed journals, preparation of grant applications, and assisting with new preliminary field and intervention studies.

Position Details:

Full-time, 12-month appointment with potential for renewal.

Competitive salary and benefits package.

Target start date: between July and September of 2026.

Responsibilities

Data Collection, Processing, and Analysis

• Prepare surveys, codebooks, and data collection methods for collecting data in new preliminary studies
• Inspect, clean, and process data from new studies. Supervise more junior staff in data collection, management, and processing tasks.
• Conduct new analyses with datasets from completed randomized controlled trials of occupational health interventions
• Conduct analyses needed for new and revised manuscript submissions

Manuscript Planning and Preparation

• Conduct literature reviews and summarize literature findings and gaps
• Plan manuscript outlines and sections according to journal requirements
• Write components of collaborative multi-author manuscripts and manage collaborative writing activities
• Assist with manuscript revisions, including responses to reviewer comments and conducting additional analyses as needed for papers.
• Applicant-initiated secondary analysis research studies are encouraged with datasets available in the lab

Grant Application Assistance

• Conduct literature reviews and summarize literature findings and gaps.
• Help prepare component required documents of grant applications based on past lab examples, or according to requirements of funding opportunities
• Prepare preliminary analyses and figures for applications
• Contribute to proof reading and quality control of all components of grant application submissions

Intervention Development and Adaptation

• Contribute to new intervention development and/or adaptation in ways that are aligned with candidate knowledge, skills, and abilities

Minimum Qualifications

• Ph.D. in Occupational Health Psychology; Industrial-Organizational Psychology; Public Health; or other field (broadly defined) relevant to Occupational Health.
• Proficiency in fundamentals of data management, analysis, and visualization using tools such as Excel, Power BI, R, SPSS, SAS, or STATA.
• Proficiency in scientific writing

Preferences

• Experience designing or evaluating occupational health interventions
• Experience developing training materials and facilitating workshops
• Experience creating REDCap projects and collecting data using REDCap (forms, surveys)
• Experience collecting and/or analyzing biometric data (blood pressure, actigraphy, finger stick blood samples, fitness testing, etc.)
• Strong communication and organizational skills
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively in dynamic multi-disciplinary teams