Job summary:

An opportunity has arisen to join the secretariat of The Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium (VIMC); a major collaborative initiative based within the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College, London and funded jointly by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, finances vaccines for developing countries for several diseases including, for instance, Hepatitis B, Measles, 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 VIMC. Disease-specific estimates are generated by a number of research groups, the consortium members. The secretariat, based at Imperial College, coordinates activities across the consortium, provides infrastructure to host the generated datasets and aggregates and interprets the estimates for use by the funders and other stakeholders.

Duties and responsibilities:

The team collaborate closely on the analysis of vaccine impact estimates generated across the consortium and the refinement of the methods used for impact estimation. This research includes (a) improving methods for generating ensemble estimates of disease burden and vaccine impact that fully represent uncertainties in the underlying data sources, assumptions and alternative model structures; (b) refining estimates to allow for sub-national variation in vaccine coverage and disease burden; (c) assessing the effects of socio-economic and geographic clustering of vaccine coverage across different vaccines (i.e. the effect of ‘hard-to-reach’ groups with low coverage of all vaccines); (d) assisting key country partners with the refinement, interpretation and use of VIMC outputs.

The role offers substantial opportunities to interact with the external modelling groups in VIMC, and to work with staff in Gavi, BMGF and other major global health bodies (notably the World Health Organization) and with public health policy-makers in low and middle-income countries.

Salary range:

£34,397 - £46,499 per annum

Essential requirements:

We are looking for a person with high potential who will fit well into the team. While the position is advertised as Research Assistant / Associate, we require all candidates to have already submitted their PhD, at a minimum. Strong technical skills including experience of mathematical or statistical modelling and programming (preferably in R) are essential.

Further information:

This post is full time and fixed term for 2 years. Imperial College is supportive of flexible working. The College is happy to discuss the possibility of implementing such arrangements for this post, with suitably qualified people, subject to operational requirements.