A Postdoctoral Scientist position is available in the laboratory of Dr. Erik Wright at the University of Pittsburgh. We seek to individuals who can effectively develop and present innovative bioinformatics educational materials to scientists. The successful candidate will spearhead the Fundamentals in Bioinformatics (FunInBio) project teaching bioinformatics skills to postdoctoral scientists and early career faculty in biological fields. The FunInBio curriculum surrounds a community science project about the environmental component of antibiotic resistance. This position provides an exceptional opportunity to hone teaching skills, master bioinformatics, and benefit the scientific community. We seek applicants who have exposure to programming, ideally for genomics applications. A strong interest in teaching and adult pedagogy is preferred. This position will require regional travel of up to eight weeks per year. The FunInBio project is funded via a NIAID R25 award (https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11144035) expected to continue through May 2030.

Qualifications or Expectations:

• Education:
  • Ph.D. degree in bioinformatics, computational biology, biomedical engineering, evolution, ecology, biology, or a related field
  • Candidates with biological backgrounds with demonstrable programming skills will be considered;
  Skills and Abilities:
  • Demonstrated working knowledge of scientific principles
  • Documented experience with bioinformatic analysis of sequencing data
  • Good knowledge of bioinformatics within genomics and next generation sequencing
  • Documented experience in sequencing data analysis using R
  • Comfortable teaching and presenting in person and online
  • Ability to work successfully within a collaborative and collegial environment and foster this ability in others
  • Ability to review goals, analyze processes necessary to achieve those goals, and develop techniques and systems required to meet those goals

Opportunities Available:

• The Wright lab, wrightlabscience.com, is a leader in software development in bioinformatics via our flagship R packages DECIPHER and SynExtend. Our lab develops workflows for comparative genomics, exploring cellular diversity, and discovering sequence-to-function relationships. We are part of the Department of Biomedical Informatics in the School of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt).
  What we provide:
  • A competitive compensation package
  • Opportunity to work in a leading edge research lab
  • Gain teaching experience at the graduate level
  • A university environment consistently in the top 10 for NIH funding

Duties or Responsibilities:

• What you’ll do:
  • Develop educational materials using R and DECIPHER for use in an online learning management software
  • Participate in iterative content revision based on student feedback
  • Hone teaching through in-person cohort sessions, on the Pitt campus or in the regional area
  • Create compelling online documentation for teaching bioinformatics via FunIn.Bio / FunInBio.com
  • Prepare survey reports, summaries, lesson plans, and perform quantitative analyses of outcomes
  • Contribute to preparation of scientific articles reporting program findings, and present results at conferences such as ISMB
  • Maintain high level professional expertise through familiarity with scientific literature, including both conceptual and technical advances
  • Interact with facilitators in related programs, such as the Bioconductor project, EvolvingSTEM, or SEA-PHAGES
  • Additional duties to support the FunInBio program and lab

For more info about this position, visit:http://wrightlabscience.com