Postdoctoral Scholar, Future Health Scenarios

The Department of Health Metrics Sciences (HMS) applies innovative, multidisciplinary, and comprehensive health metrics science to critical health problems and their drivers, and collaborates worldwide in pursuit of policy impact, change in practice, and dissemination of information to improve health for all people. HMS advances the field and the Academy through nurturing and training the next generation of diverse and high-potential scientists and leaders with mentorship by renowned faculty, and with access to top-tier data, resources, infrastructure, and networking strategies. Faculty, staff, and students within HMS collaborate extensively with IHME.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent research organization that produces cutting-edge scientific and policy-relevant quantitative evidence for use by policymakers, donors, and other stakeholders. Based at the University of Washington, IHME’s ongoing work provides high-quality measurement of the world’s major health problems, assesses how these problems are being addressed, and identifies how best to dedicate resources to maximize health improvement.  IHME’s approach maximized cross-disciplinary, quantitative analytic approaches and methods aimed at incorporating all relevant data in order to produce policy-relevant results using ground-breaking science.

IHME and the Department of Health Metrics Sciences has an excellent opportunity for two Postdoctoral Scholars to join our team. The postdoctoral scholars will develop new methods and innovate on existing methods to produce probabilistic forecasts of population health measures. In addition, they will be integrally involved in developing custom scenarios that quantifiably measure the population health impacts (live saved) from reducing key risk factors or scaling up new interventions or treatments. Examples include: improving the predictive validity of forecasting models through various hold-out experiments; modeling the impact of new tobacco elimination policies to forecasts of smoking exposure; understanding and adapting emerging statistical and mathematical methods to forecasting applications, and developing new methods to capture model uncertainty with less computational burden.  In each case, the challenges addressed by the individual will require an intensive understanding of the principles underlying the analytic task, command of cutting-edge methods, and contextual understanding of the key outputs desired by the analytic understanding.  We are looking for someone ready to advance in their career in population health sciences and/or methods development. As a Postdoctoral Scholar you will contribute to research design and training and mentoring junior staff.  The position requires the ability to translate from research needs into methodological possibilities and communicate methodologic solutions to a variety of audiences.  The individuals will be vital members of the Future Health Scenarios (Forecasting) team.

You will be integrally involved in producing, critiquing, improving, and disseminating results. You are someone that is capable of keeping your team on track to meet deadlines and research objectives. You have experience with the publication process, and at IHME, you will build out your portfolio with several peer-reviewed papers. You thrive in a collaborative work environment and are capable of working on multiple projects concurrently while meeting deadlines. You keep current of recent scientific, engineering and technical advances and are able to translate these into your research.  Overall, Postdoctoral Scholars are critical members of agile, dynamic research teams.  They are accountable for achieving agreed deliverables to make key indicators available and to produce ground-breaking science. This position is contingent on project funding availability. Anticipated start is Autumn 2024, or as soon as available.

Responsibilities

• Produce forecasts and custom scenarios of population health measures using mathematical and statistical modeling tools.

• Develop methods for specific application areas and disseminate these methods using open-source software.

• Develop and implement new computational and statistical methods. Create, test, and use relevant computer code (Python, SQL or equivalent). Maintain, modify, and execute analytic machinery that results.

• Provide ideas and content for the development of internal trainings. Teach established trainings.

• Exhibit command of one or more of the research areas at IHME, including the methodology and its components.

• Independently carry out quantitative analyses and participate in reciprocal research projects. Interpret and vet results from junior staff, formulate conclusions and inform team leaders.

• Develop, quality check, and distribute complex code and data sets to be used in epidemiological and statistical analyses.

• Draft presentations, manuscripts, and contribute to funding proposals.

• Lead and co-author scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals.

• Maintain scientific awareness and intellectual agility with data, methods, and analytic techniques.

• Oversee staff to include: hiring and training; leading workflow; priority setting; critiquing work and establishing quality standards; conducting regular performance assessments, providing mentorship and professional development for employees.

• Contribute to research design.

• Other duties as assigned that fall within reasonable scope of research team.

Conditions of employment: 

• This position is eligible for visa sponsorship through the University of Washington.

• This position is a Seattle based role and the office is located in Seattle, Washington. This position is eligible to choose to work remote/hybrid or in office from Seattle, WA; work schedule required to adhere to IHME office hours, between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Pacific Time as agreed upon between employee and supervisor.

• Weekend and evening work is sometimes required.

• Working internationally is only allowed for IHME sponsored research projects that require in-country participation.

Qualifications 

Minimum

MD, PhD, or foreign equivalent in mathematics, statistics, biostatistics, epidemiology, economics, public health, quantitative social sciences or related discipline plus four years related experience or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Additional

• Excellent analytic, critical thinking, and quantitative skills.

• Results and detail-oriented individual that can initiate and complete tasks under tight deadlines and changing priorities both independently and in a team environment. Flexibility with hours and workload is key.

• Record of devising and executing statistical modeling techniques.

• Demonstrated ability to quickly recognize problems in results and identify root causes in data, methods, and code.

• Ease in designing, executing, and troubleshooting code in one or more languages (e.g. Python, SQL).

• Excellent written and oral communication skills required, including track record of success in co-authorship on multiple scientific papers, presenting results, and representing research at meetings.

• Ability to work both independently and in collaboration with a team

• A long-term interest in contributing to the overall mission of our research

• A commitment to working to alongside others at IHME to illuminate the health impacts of systemic racism and to work within IHME to make our organization more diverse and inclusive. See IHME’s DEI statement here: http://www.healthdata.org/get-involved/careers/dei

Desired

• Demonstrated expertise with optimization, data science, and analytic techniques, including time series analysis.

• Record of mentoring and developing junior employees on soft and technical skills.

• Advanced experience developing code in Python and familiarity modeling with multi-dimensional arrays

• Demonstrated expertise with project management methods.

• Peer-reviewed publication record.

Postdoctoral scholars are represented by UAW 4121 and are subject to the collective bargaining agreement, unless agreed exclusion criteria apply. For more information, please visit the University of Washington Labor Relations website (link is external).

Postdoctoral Scholar appointments are initially for 12-months with opportunities to renew. Appointment not to exceed 5 years, including postdoctoral experience(s) at other institutions. The salary range for this position is $81,000-$91,188.

Application Information

Applicants should submit a curriculum vitae and a brief statement (500-word limit) outlining research interests via Interfolio: http://apply.interfolio.com/153875(link is external)

The FHS team is growing and is eagerly seeking both academic and staff candidates for several positions. We warmly invite you to review the available openings on our careers page: https://www.healthdata.org/about/careers