RTI International is one of the world's leading research institutes, dedicated to improving the human condition by turning knowledge into practice. Our staff of nearly 6,000 provides research and technical services to governments, foundations, and businesses in more than 75 countries in the areas of health and pharmaceuticals, education and training, surveys and statistics, advanced technology, international development, economic and social policy, energy and the environment, and laboratory testing and chemical analysis.

The Biostatistics and Epidemiology Division of RTI International seeks an early career epidemiologist to support and lead modeling efforts. The successful candidate will provide leadership and technical expertise for disease modeling studies. The candidate will serve as technical task leader, project director, and/or principal investigator of contracts or grants funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and/or Department of Defense (DOD) that may involve topical areas such as infectious diseases, environmental health, and chronic diseases. The successful candidate is expected to lead multidisciplinary teams, develop collaborative relationships across RTI, and interact with internal and external clients, stakeholders and partners.

This position can be based in the RTI headquarters in Research Triangle Park, NC or one of the regional offices located in Rockville, MD, Washington, DC, Berkeley, CA, or Atlanta, GA.

Essential Duties:
• Lead infectious disease modeling research, such as mathematical and simulation modeling and predictive modeling and forecasting; design and implement model-based experiments to investigate pressing questions in disease control and prevention; and communicate highly technical information to a range of stakeholders.
• Collaborate with a team of epidemiologists, computer scientists, data scientists, statisticians, and subject matter experts to solve problems using modeling and data science approaches, techniques, and methods for application to public health practice.
• Review scientific literature and determine which characteristics (e.g., aspects of biology, behavior, demography, culture, geography) are relevant for models.
• Employ cutting edge approaches and tools to access and analyze data from a variety of sources and generate compelling data visualizations.
• Participate in or oversee data integration, exploratory analyses, and modeling tasks.
• Build new features for existing disease models; design and implement new modeling methods; lead in implementing models and simulations using a variety of software and tools.
• Provide guidance and oversee the conduct of complex modeling projects as a project director or other leader, including ensuring model quality and appropriate documentation.
• Prepare and deliver presentations and written reports for internal and external clients and manuscripts for scientific and technical journals.
• Participate in business development and marketing opportunities to obtain research funding from a broad range of client agencies and other funding sources.
• Participate in proposal writing.
• Participate in appropriate professional development and scientific stature efforts.
Qualifications:
• PhD and at least 2 years’ related experience (post-doc qualifies as experience) in a field such as epidemiology, health data science, health policy, global health, or biostatistics, biomathematics, bioinformatics, or computational biology
• Strong communication skills (oral and written) and presentation skills.
• Domain expertise in any of the following: infectious disease epidemiology; healthcare, health policy, global health, or biostatistics, biomathematics, bioinformatics, or computational biology
• Demonstrated proficiency with predictive analytics techniques including: machine learning (e.g., regression, neural networks, decision trees, KNN, K-means, random forests, model ensembles, support vector machines) and simulation modeling (e.g., system dynamics, microsimulation, discrete event simulation, Markov modeling, and agent-based models).
• Experience with modern open source software used in predictive analytics, preferably Python or R.
• Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United Stated and should not require now, or in the future, sponsorship for employment visa sponsorship.

Preferred:
• Experience with agent-based modeling software (e.g., Netlogo, Repast, AnyLogic).
• Experience with SQL.
• Ability to extract, merge, and analyze data from a wide variety of sources (e.g., relational databases, text and unstructured data, sensor data, image data).
• Experience with text analytics and natural language processing.
• Experience with data visualization.
• Experience with a compiled programming language (e.g., C, C#, C++, Java).
• Experience in cluster and cloud computing environments.
• Experience with GIS.
• Experience in customer-facing roles (e.g., listening to clients, discussing client problems, developing projects directed at solving client problems and communicating solutions).