Research Scientist - Center for Climate and Health

Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH)

Position Overview

The Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) Center for Climate and Health (CCH) invites applications for a Research Scientist to support interdisciplinary research on the health impacts of extreme weather, with embedded roles in major NIH-funded initiatives including the CAFE Research Coordinating Center (CAFE RCC) and the Gateway Exposome Coordinating Center (GECC). CCH advances research, training, and translation to reduce climate-related health risks with a focus on actionable science for vulnerable populations. The successful candidate will contribute to research spanning extreme weather, air pollution, built environment, and exposome science, while helping to build shared data infrastructure and collaborative science communities.

Key Responsibilities

• Apply advanced geospatial, environmental, and spatiotemporal analytic methods (e.g., GIS, remote sensing, causal inference, statistical modeling)
• Manage and harmonize large-scale datasets across climate, environmental, and population health domains
• Lead and contribute to studies of climate-related exposures and health outcomes, including extreme heat, air pollution, and climate hazards
• Contribute to manuscripts, grant proposals, and reports for NIH and other sponsors
• Mentor trainees and support team science across BUSPH and partner institutions

CAFE RCC Activities

• Support development of the CAFE community of practice, convening researchers, agencies, and partners across disciplines with a focus on data, metadata and ontologies, and data pipelines.
• Contribute to data sharing and reproducible science infrastructure, including the CAFE Dataverse and GitHub resources
• Engage in training, workshops, and capacity-building initiatives (e.g., methods training, pilot projects, collaborative networks)
• Facilitate integration and harmonization of environmental and health datasets to accelerate climate-health research

GECC Activities

• Contribute to development and application of exposome frameworks spanning environmental, social, and policy-related exposures
• Support harmonization, linkage, and dissemination of exposure data and measures across cohorts and studies
• Participate in generating science-ready tools, guidance, and best practices for exposome research
• Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to advance research on life-course environmental exposures and health outcomes

Required Qualifications

• PhD in data science, engineering, environmental health, epidemiology, biostatistics, geography, or related field
• 1-3 years of experience in creation and management of complex spatial environmental or health datasets and development of reproducible data pipelines. Substantive expertise in climate and health, environmental epidemiology, or exposure science also an asset.
• Strong programming and analytic skills (e.g., R, Python, ArcGIS/QGIS)
• Demonstrated publication record

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with extreme weather and climate exposure metrics
• Expertise in spatial or spatiotemporal modeling
• Familiarity with NIH data management, FAIR principles, and open science practices
• Experience in collaborative or coordinating center environments
• Interest in data infrastructure, harmonization, and community-engaged research