Job summary

Imperial College London is seeking a Research Assistant or Research Associate to work on estimating the burden of yellow fever and the impact of vaccination on this burden, for the Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium (VIMC, www.vaccineimpact.org). The consortium is a major collaborative initiative directed by Prof Neil Ferguson, and based within the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London. It is funded jointly by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. The MRC Centre has built upon a world-leading research group in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology to undertake applied collaborative work with national and international agencies in support of policy planning for emerging and endemic infectious diseases.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, finances vaccines for low and middle income countries for a number of diseases such as measles, hepatitis B, meningitis A and yellow fever. For communication to stakeholders, fundraising, and planning of future investment strategies they rely critically on modelled vaccine impact estimates, generated by the consortium. Disease-specific estimates are currently generated by 21 research groups (the consortium modellers) for 12 diseases. Two groups are based at Imperial College London, which are generating disease-specific estimates for yellow fever and hepatitis B. The post holder will work on estimating the burden of yellow fever in Africa and South America and the impact of vaccination on this burden, improving and validating an existing model for the yellow fever transmission intensity.

Duties and responsibilities

This post provides a unique opportunity to develop state-of-the-art mathematical models of a devastating human pathogen, within a world-renowned group; in the challenging situation of limited data availability and to feed the results back to public health agencies such as the WHO and Gavi to inform decision making regarding the funding of mass vaccination campaigns. The successful candidate will be expected to present their work to consortium members and funders as well as at international conferences.

Salary range

£35,477 – £47,579 plus benefits

Essential requirements

We are looking for a researcher with a MSc & PhD in infectious disease epidemiology, population biology, mathematics, statistics, theoretical physics, computer science or a similarly quantitative discipline and research experience of working with mathematical or statistical models.

While the position is advertised as Research Assistant / Associate, we require all candidates to have already submitted their PhD, at a minimum.

Further information

This is a full-time post available until 31 March 22. The successful candidate will be based at the St Mary’s Campus, Paddington. Please note that remote working is expected for the rest of 2020.

Should you have any queries please contact Kim Woodruff (k.woodruff@imperial.ac.uk).

For technical issues when applying online please email recruitment@imperial.ac.uk.