Postdoctoral Fellowship Opportunities

The research team of Dr. Caroline Colijn is seeking up to two enthusiastic, creative and motivated postdoctoral researchers in biomathematics, discrete mathematics, infectious disease, phylogenetics, evolution, statistics or a related field, for postdoctoral positions in the Department of Mathematics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada.

The research program will centre around several key strands: (1) Transmission and pathogen genomic data. We will develop methods to reconstruct infectious disease outbreaks with the help of pathogen sequence data. This builds on tools like TransPhylo, a Bayesian inference approach that in principle allows estimation of where cases might have been missed, as well as when individuals were infected. Key aims include developing real-time tools to find worrisome outbreaks or clusters early, to integrate diverse data sources and to improve the modelling and statistical tools behind the inference. (2) Linking modelling and prediction. While there are many exciting technical advances in infectious disease, much work on pathogen genomics is primarily descriptive. In contrast, the models used to make predictions and understand fundamental principles for diverse circulating infections remain simple, and are not linked to the rich data we have to describe infections and their ecology. In this strand we build links between mechanistic mathematical models and genomic data in the context of infectious disease. We will use tools from modelling, statistics and data science alongside tree and network structures. (3) The mathematics of evolutionary trees and networks. Sequencing technologies have provided rich and diverse datasets about pathogens at a range of scales, including global genomic data, detailed outbreak data and global surveillance data. But understanding what these data mean is enhanced by new mathematics. For example, we have developed metrics on sets of trees that allow exploration of the space of transmission trees or of phylogenetic trees, and characterized informative features of data that can help to reveal information about the underlying ecology of a set of sequences. In this strand we will carry this area further, developing the mathematics of evolutionary trees and networks with a view towards applications.

Postdoctoral researchers will have the scope to work on an ongoing project within these broad themes, and/or to develop independent related research programs if they so wish. Positions will be offered for 1 year at the outset, with the option to extend to 3 years, funding permitting.

Application deadline: Applications are now being accepted.

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The Department of Statistics at the University of British Columbia invites applications for a postdoctoral research fellow under the supervision of Professor Daniel J. McDonald. Opportunities for collaboration across the Department of Statistics, the Faculty of Science, and the UBC community will be available. Collaboration with members of Carnegie Mellon’s Delphi Research Group as part of its Insight Net Center will be emphasized. While the start date is flexible, the selected candidate will ideally begin no later than September 2024.

Responsibilities: You will work with Professor McDonald, his research team, and members of Carnegie Mellon’s Delphi Research Group to develop statistical methods for epidemic detection, tracking and forecasting, and their use in decision making, both public and private. The postdoctoral fellow is expected to develop statistical methods and apply them to real-world studies, author and co-author manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals, disseminate research findings at professional conferences, collaborate with public health professionals, create and manage open-source software, and mentor other graduate students.

Application deadline: Applications will be accepted until the position is filled, but submissions received before 1 April 2024 are guaranteed consideration.

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Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) is looking for a postdoctoral researcher to develop and apply statistical methods to predict the occurrence and duration of severe wildfires in Canada. The researcher will work with fire scientists from NRCan and statisticians at the University of Guelph as part of an interdisciplinary “Daily Fire Occurrence and Burn Probability” project.

We seek a statistician or a quantitative environmental scientist with expertise and interest in statistical methods relevant for environmental/atmospheric sciences. The position offers an excellent environment for working with a highly skilled interdisciplinary team in NRCan and at the University of Guelph. The expertise of team members includes applied statistical modelling, stochastic processes, machine learning, climate analyses, and wildfire behaviour and occurrence prediction. The successful candidate will focus on the analysis of the influence of weather and other environmental variables on the occurrence of lightning, human-caused and severe fires, and the development of predictive models for such occurrence. Understanding and predicting such “megafires” is an area of intensive current research in the fire science community and critically important to public safety.

This is a 1-year term position with renewal for an additional 18 months contingent upon satisfactory job performance and continuing availability of funds. The position will be located in Victoria, B.C. The anticipated start date is September 1, 2024, but is flexible.

Application deadline: Now accepting applications.

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Two postdoctoral fellow positions in Statistics are currently available with the CANSSI Collaborative Research Team (CRT) on The Application of Statistical Methods to Wastewater Analysis, led by Charmaine Dean (University of Waterloo), Robert Delatolla (University of Ottawa), and X. Joan Hu (Simon Fraser University). One position will be at the University of Waterloo with the focus on development of statistical methods, supervised by C. Dean jointly with X.J. Hu; the other position, at the University of Ottawa, on statistical applications in wastewater analysis, supervised by R. Delatolla jointly with C. Dean.

These positions will advance knowledge and analysis related to statistical methods for the analysis of health projects related to disease surveillance. Each of the appointments is for an initial term of one year, with potential for renewal for a second year, with a salary of $60,000. The starting dates of the positions are September 2024, with flexibility for starting later in Fall 2024.  Each of the postdoctoral fellows may have opportunities to teach one course per academic year based on teaching qualifications and the preference of the candidate.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, with reviewing beginning in July 2024 until the positions are filled. Applicants are expected to hold a PhD in Statistics or a related area. Experience in research areas such as spatio-temporal analysis, machine learning, and/or joint (random effects) modelling would be advantageous to accelerating the research projects.  No knowledge of wastewater-based surveillance or wastewater-based epidemiology is expected.  We are looking for candidates who have interest in health research as well as expertise in statistical methods to research several interesting surveillance questions leading to better tools for warning signals in surges of disease that would impact health system utilization, so as to better support patient care.

Applicants are invited to submit the following information with the subject line of “Statistics Postdoc Application” to vpri-assistant@uwaterloo.ca: (a) a cover letter, (b) a curriculum vitae, identifying date or expected date of completion of a PhD, (c) a short research statement describing current and past research (two-page maximum), and (d) a list of contact information for three references.

Application deadline: Review of applications begins in July 2024.

Mitacs offers various opportunities for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

Location: Canada
Deadline: Multiple

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