Postdoc / Virus Evolution and Bioinformatics

Postdoctoral Associate, Virus Evolution and Bioinformatics

The Poon lab (https://github.com/PoonLab) focuses on the development and application of computational methods to reconstruct the molecular evolution and epidemiology of human RNA viruses.  We seek to fill an opening for a Postdoctoral Associate to study non-parametric clustering methods and their application to reconstruct transmission patterns from the genetic divergence of virus infections.

The lab is situated on Western University (https://uwo.ca) campus in London, Ontario, in a newly-renovated space adjacent to three other bioinformatics research groups (genomic epidemiology, spatial transcriptomics, machine learning).

Salary: $70K per year, including benefits

Duration: 2 years, renewable

Start date: September 1, 2023, or earlier as needed

How to apply: Send a CV, contact information for at least two work-related references, and (optionally) examples of your source code to apoon42@uwo.ca

• lead the development and validation of unsupervised clustering (community detection) methods for the characterization of transmission patterns from virus sequence data
• respond to bug reports in the lab’s open-source code repositories
• assist in the maintenance and administration of lab computing resources (Linux workstations, servers and computing clusters)
• prepare and revise manuscripts for submission to peer-reviewed scientific journals
• provide mentorship for graduate and undergraduate student members of the lab
• participate and contribute to regular lab meetings and bioinformatics group seminars

Required qualifications:

• a PhD in biological sciences, bioinformatics, applied mathematics, statistics, computer science, epidemiology, or a related field;
• experience working with command-line interfaces (i.e., Linux, macOS terminal);
• experience with at least one scripting language (preferably Python and/or R);
• preferably some experience with basic software development principles, e.g., version control systems (git), writing external and internal documentation, unit testing;
• ability to prepare and revise scientific manuscripts in English, as demonstrated by a record of first-author publications;
• ability to communicate and to work as part of a team