Position Title: Postdoctoral Research Positions in Computational Biology and Metagenomics

Duties & Responsibilities: The Huttenhower lab in the Biostatistics Department of the Harvard School of Public Health is seeking to fill multiple postdoctoral research positions. The successful candidates will be responsible for funded research projects including functional analysis in the Human Microbiome Project and other metagenomic and metatranscriptomic data, methods development for high-dimensional multivariate phenotype association, and applications to metagenomic biomarker discovery in human disease. The Huttenhower lab is broadly engaged in multiple collaborative studies of the roles of the human microbiome in health and disease, with a focus on computational methods to characterize biomolecular functions within these microbial communities and their interactions with host immunity and genetics. Available postdoctoral research areas include studies of the human microbiome, links between the human and murine gut microbiota in autoimmune and inflammatory disease, and quantitative methods development for the analysis of structured high-dimensional phenotypic, genetic, genomic, and metagenomic data. Specifically, we seek to determine A) links between microbial membership and metabolic function in the gut microbiota; B) causal or correlative changes in the human and murine microbiota during disease onset and treatment; C) potential biomolecular interactors between the gut microbial community and the host immune system; and D) the relationship between the composition and function of the murine microbiome and its counterpart in human disease. Additionally, computational methods are required to control false discovery rates when integrating multiple genetic (e.g. polymorphisms), genomic (e.g. gene expression), metagenomic, and phenotypic (e.g. disease status, biometrics, demographics, diet) data types. The candidates for these projects will be responsible both for computational methods development and for these initial applications' analysis. They should be broadly conversant with bioinformatic techniques for genomic data analysis and will collaborate closely with software developers for methods implementation and with experimental laboratories for validation of computational results. Positions will be located within the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health; the Huttenhower group works closely with the Broad Institute, the Human Microbiome Project, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and the broader Boston biomedical and life sciences communities, resulting in a rich environment for quantitative, computational, and laboratory collaborations.

Position Qualifications: Doctoral degree in Computer Science, Bioinformatics, Biostatistics, Biology, or a related field; proficiency in one or more statistical or scripting languages appropriate for scalable data analysis; comfort and experience with programming for biological data analysis; familiarity with functional genetic and/or genomic data, as indicated by publication record; ability to communicate scientific material and collaborate well.

Salary Range:

Benefits:

Web Site: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/departments/biostatistics/ AND http://huttenhower.org/

Application Address: Please submit a cover letter (including a brief but detailed statement of interest), CV, and contact information for at least three references to Dr. Curtis Huttenhower at chuttenh@hsph.harvard.edu AND to biostat_postdoc@hsph.harvard.edu.

Contact Email:

Application Deadline: 06/29/2012