Research Scientist Position at the intersection of Statistical Machine Learning and Healthcare
Who are we?
The Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare at Johns Hopkins University is looking to hire a research scientist with interest in data analysis for advancing healthcare applications.
Healthcare spending in the US is nearing $3 trillion per year, but in spite of this expenditure, the US is outpaced by most developed countries in terms of health and quality of life outcomes—for example, it ranks 36th internationally in life expectancy. Until recently, one of the key bottlenecks for research in care delivery was the lack of data to analyze the health system’s workings. Much of the valuable data on symptoms, treatments, services, costs, and individuals’ health states were stored as paper records that weren’t amenable to retrospective, automated analyses. Today much of this data is getting recorded digitally due to the HITECH Act.
Our mission is to develop statistical and computational tools that leverage such data to tailor decision making in healthcare, with the ultimate goal of lowering costs and improving quality. If you want to make an impact using data science and are excited about the opportunity of doing so in healthcare—an area of tremendous societal importance—we will give you a great environment to do so. You will be performing research and interacting with talented students and some of the world’s best experts in engineering, health policy and medicine.
What will your day-to-day work involve?
- Learn about state-of-the-art statistical and machine learning methods, and develop working prototypes on large datasets.
- Work with a team of PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and other faculty collaborators to extend existing methods for new healthcare applications.
- Collaborate with other programmers who are proficient in software systems for big data.
- Communicate your findings to collaborators and publish findings.
- Create software that can contribute towards improving human health; software produced will be deployed in real-healthcare settings.
Here are the traits we’re looking for:
- PhD in Statistics, Computer Science or any data intensive computing related field. Any additional industry experience is a big plus.
- Deep familiarity with the process of developing a data-driven system (i.e. gathering and cleaning data, learning about the domain, implementing models, error analysis, presenting your findings).
- Able to write code well. Strong programming background in R, Python or C++. Experience in languages beyond R is a plus. You will be expected to learn Python as part of your work if you are not already proficient in it.
- Comfort with mathematics and statistics is a plus. If we need to develop or adapt existing algorithms, comfort in thinking about optimization objectives, linear algebra formulation of algorithms, statistical estimation techniques will come in handy.
- You’re self-directed, driven and motivated. You’re likely the kind of person who independently finds useful and interesting things to do in your spare time.
- You want to solve big problems and you enjoy working with others.
- If you’re lacking in experience but are outstanding in other regards, we are interested in hearing more.
This is a full time position. Your salary will be commensurate with your experience. In addition, you will enjoy the standard perks of being in a university setting — healthcare benefits, flexible hours, and build expertise on state-of-the-art ideas through collaboration.
Interested?
If you have questions about the position, please send a note to Prof. Suchi Saria at ssaria@cs.jhu.edu. To apply, please send a copy of your CV, with a cover letter and two references to https://jobs.jhu.edu/jhujobs/admin/requisition/301981/staff/applicants
Tell us about any relevant field experiences you have (e.g., research projects with companies or research labs, projects with DARPA, DoD or other government agencies any large software packages you’ve led or managed, any state-of-the-art algorithms you’ve developed). Position is open until filled.
About Hopkins:
For more than a century, Johns Hopkins has been recognized as a leader in medical research and teaching, with a history of successfully combining innovation at the forefront of engineering and medicine. Members of our lab frequently benefit from collaborators with the following Hopkins entities:
- The Johns Hopkins health system includes six academic and community hospitals, four suburban health care and surgery centers, more than 30 primary health care outpatient sites, as well as programs for national and international patient activities. The Johns Hopkins Hospital is the only hospital in history to have earned the number one ranking by U.S. News for 22 years—an unprecedented 21 years in a row from 1991 to 2011, and again in 2013.
- The Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins, specializing in research on health and wellness nationally and internationally, has consistently earned the number one rank by U.S. News since 1994.
- Johns Hopkins is also one of few academic centers in the country with a risk bearing Employee Health Plan which is self-funded and manages the full continuum of care for 300,000 lives; this gives Johns Hopkins a unique entrée into research that incentivizes use of data to lower costs and improve health outcomes.
- Hopkins has the top ranked Biomedical Engineering program, and multiple institutes and centers dedicated to advancing care delivery. Examples include: The Institute of Computational Medicine comprising faculty that integrate diverse approaches from biomedical engineering, computer science and medicine to model human biology. The Institute for Data Intensive Science and Engineering comprising faculty that study big data systems and applications. Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics focused on advancing surgical science through computational analysis. The Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute focusing on all aspects of security and in particular, securing medical systems.
Apply https://jobs.jhu.edu/jhujobs/admin/requisition/301981/staff/applicants
Johns Hopkins University is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability, marital status, veteran status, or any other occupationally irrelevant criteria. The university promotes affirmative action for minorities, women, disabled persons, and veterans.