Post-doctoral Research Fellow in Infant Sleep Science

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Post-doctoral Research Fellow with the scientific expertise to undertake the integration and, statistical analysis of sleep and circadian rhythm data from two existing cohorts: The INTERGROWTH-21st Project (healthy, low-risk mother-child dyads) and INTERBIO-21st Study7 (medium- to high-risk mother-child dyads) from Brazil, India, Italy, Kenya, Pakistan, South Africa, Thailand and the UK. There will be scope to work in interdisciplinary teams within the research groups in Oxford, and also in collaborating centres in the EU (Sweden), as well as opportunities to connect to clinical studies and research impact initiatives.

The successful applicant will apply inter-disciplinary, state-of-the-art, computational and statistical analytical techniques to (1) setting up an international sleep meta-dataset, combining sleep, fetal, perinatal, and postnatal growth, health, environmental and neurodevelopment data from the INTERGROWTH-21st and INTERBIO-21st cohorts and (2) modelling analyses of the sleep data to examine cross-population differences, interactions with early life (including fetal brain) markers, socio-ecological factors and neurodevelopment.

The post-holder will benefit from epidemiological/statistical/data science expertise. The post-holder will have responsibility for (1) integrating the data and constructing the metadataset; (2) designing and implementing the analysis, (3) writing up reports and publications, and (4) communicating results with a range of audiences, as well as managing their own time and resources.

The post-holder will have the opportunity to undertake collaborative work involving leading centres of chronobiological, early child development and perinatal research in the UK and EU.

The suitable candidate must have, or be close to obtaining, a PhD in neuroscience, sleep science, child psychology, epidemiology, biostatistics or a closely related field.  Experience in the following data management and statistical techniques is also essential: Creation and curation of large datasets, advanced statistical modelling including variance component analysis, regression analysis and meta-analysis of data. Experience of planning and implementing a data analysis strategy for a research project, accurate record keeping, excellent communication skills and the demonstrable ability to prepare research articles at an international peer-reviewed level are also essential for this role.

The post is offered on a full-time basis and is fixed term for one year in the first instance. However, we expect there will be career development opportunities for the post-holder beyond this first phase of this project.

Applications for flexible working arrangements are welcomed and will be considered in line with business needs.

The closing date for applications is 12.00 noon on Monday 4th March 2024.