Post-Doctoral Position in Network Epidemiology and HIV Prevention Research at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory
The Department of Medicine and the Chicago Center for HIV Elimination (CCHE) announces a post-doctoral position at the University of Chicago (UC), focusing on quantitative data sciences and HIV/STI prevention research, with a joint affiliation at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL).
The position is under the direct supervision of Jonathan Ozik, Ph.D. (ANL, UC), Aditya Khanna, Ph.D. (UC), and in collaboration with the center Director (John Schneider MD, MPH) and other center faculty (http://hivelimination.uchicago.edu/people/faculty) to support a skilled computational social/health scientist interested in developing a career in quantitative data analysis and computational health modeling. The position includes opportunities for conducting and publishing original research, leadership roles on ongoing projects, grant writing, developing an independent area of research, and intellectual support in the form of didactic course work. The position will focus on developing models of HIV transmission, conducting large-scale computational experiments with those models, analyzing quantitative data and publishing empirical papers from ongoing studies in the United States and other global research sites.
A central theme in our research is the integration of network data collection, visualization, analysis and simulation modeling with HIV/STI prevention as we utilize novel data sources. These include online social media (e.g. Facebook), egocentrically collected sexual network information, and phylogenetic data. Combining network data sources for improving health outcomes is an emerging area of computational social research, with many opportunities to develop independent career paths. Projects, data and community engagement are heavily concentrated among networks of men who have sex with men and transgender populations in South Chicago. Ongoing projects include cross-sectional surveys, large longitudinal cohort studies, venue-based surveys, Department of Public Health interventions, and multisite network-based interventions funded by several institutes of the National Institutes of Health (NIAID, NIMH, NICHD, NIDA). Additionally, our research team has extensive experience in developing sophisticated agent-based models and agent-based modeling toolkits.
Requirements for this position include completing of a doctoral degree by the start date with demonstrated computational skills (Ph.D. in Statistics, Computational Social Science, Computational Epidemiology, Applied Mathematics, or related quantitative discipline), evidence of published scientific articles, and a strong interest in publishing network-based HIV/STI prevention research. Candidates are expected to have facility with R or Python and experience with Java or C++, especially for agent-based or network modeling, is a plus. A requirement includes the ability to integrate work within a diverse set of academic, national lab and professional partners across the UC/ANL community including the Department of Sociology, National Opinion Research Center, Social Services Administration, Harris School of Public Policy, Pritzker School of Medicine, the Booth School of Business, and partner institutions nationally. This position offers a competitive stipend/salary, benefits, office space, access to internal sources of pilot project support, travel support to research conferences and access to internationally based University of Chicago Academic Centers, including the university centers in New Delhi and Shanghai. The University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory offer excellent career development opportunities for postdoctoral scientists, tailored to their specific future goals, including academia, government, and industry.
Interested candidates should email a current CV, 2 representative papers/publications, and names of at least two references to Aditya Khanna (akhanna@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu) and Jonathan Ozik (jozik@anl.gov).