Research Associate – Bioinformatics Analyst and/or Trainer

We seek a talented and highly motivated Bioinformatician to join our dynamic, collaborative team focused on high-throughput sequencing (HTS) applications. The ideal candidate will have experience analyzing and interpreting omics data, and is enthusiastic to share their expertise through the core’s consulting and education programs. The candidate will work as part of a team of bioinformaticians to develop and apply bioinformatics workflows to support both standard and custom data analysis for variant calling, transcriptomics, epigenomics and multi-omics projects. This role provides a unique and rewarding opportunity to support and train world-class researchers and to make a profound impact on human health.

About us
The Harvard Chan Bioinformatics Core (HBC) is a center for bioinformatics research, services and training at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. We work closely with biomedical scientists across Harvard to implement approaches for analysis, interpretation, visualization, and dissemination of scientific discoveries using high-throughput omics data.

Our multidisciplinary team works with biomedical research groups in the Harvard, MIT and Broad communities, and at local hospitals and industry. We work on a wide range of projects across domains, including but not limited to cancer, stem cell biology, immunology and neurobiology. Our core has a strong educational mission. Members of the core participate in training activities, with the goal to enable experimentalists to analyze their data independently. The HBC emphasizes teamwork and a supportive environment where we learn from each other.

About you
You have a background in biomedical or quantitative science and a strong interest in working with biomedical researchers. You thrive on scientific challenges, and enjoy collaborating with an interdisciplinary team. You can combine your knowledge of biology and computation to communicate effectively with programmers and wet-lab scientists alike. You are an independent learner, are keen to explore and apply new methods, and are motivated to continually expand your skills. You follow best practices for code and data management, have good organization skills, and are capable of simultaneously working on different projects and deadlines. You are experienced with high-throughput sequencing analysis and are comfortable mentoring junior researchers. An interest and/or experience in teaching all of the above-mentioned skills to wet-lab biologists, is a plus.

The Bioinformatician will support selected research projects at the Harvard Chan School, Harvard and the broader Boston biomedical community. They will provide expertise in the use of specialized bioinformatics tools and analysis methods. They will collaborate with researchers to design, analyze and interpret experiments.

Coordinating with experienced Core staff, the candidate will analyze incoming data using existing analytical approaches in the Core, and assess and/or develop new methods where appropriate. They will document their work thoroughly, adhere to NIH requirements for data management, and provide manuscript-level reporting of final analyses and results. They will summarize, analyze, and visualize data using advanced techniques, and present it clearly to collaborators. If interested, the candidate will have opportunities to work with the training team to teach workshops and develop new training content geared towards Harvard graduate students, postdocs, research staff and faculty.

Basic

• Ph.D. in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Genomics, Biostatistics or Biological Sciences with working knowledge of molecular biology.
• At least 2 years of postdoctoral experience in academia or industry using a broad range of current bioinformatics approaches for common applications. Expertise in one of the following HTS applications is required:
  • Whole genome or exome-sequencing
  • Transcriptomics (bulk, small or single cell RNA-seq)
  • Epigenomics (ChIP-seq or ATAC-seq)
• Demonstrable ability to apply statistical approaches to analyze data, interpret and present results.
• Excellent analytical and programming skills.
• Excellent communication and time management skills.

Additional

• Knowledge of and experience with cancer or immunology datasets is a plus.
• Ability to produce reproducible code (R Markdown, Latex, Jupyter notebooks, etc).
• GitHub repositories and publications that can showcase your skills.
• A strong interest in sharing expertise and/or teaching.