LEAD RESEARCH SCIENTIST, MATH SCIENCES & COMPUTATIONAL ALGORITHMS

As a UW employee, you have a unique opportunity to change lives on our campuses, in our state and around the world. UW employees offer their boundless energy, creative problem solving skills and dedication to build stronger minds and a healthier world.

UW faculty and staff also enjoy outstanding benefits, professional growth opportunities and unique resources in an environment noted for diversity, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits and natural beauty. 

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent research center at the University of Washington. Its mission is to deliver to the world timely, relevant, and scientifically valid evidence to improve health policy and practice. IHME carries out its mission through a range of projects within different research areas including the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors; Future Health Scenarios; Cost Effectiveness and Efficiency; Resource Tracking; and Impact Evaluations. Our vision is to provide policymakers, donors, and researchers with the highest-quality quantitative evidence base so all people live long lives in full health.

IHME is committed to providing the evidence base necessary to help solve the world’s most important health problems. This requires creativity and innovation, which is cultivated by an inclusive, diverse, and equitable environment that respects and appreciates differences, embraces collaboration, and invites the voices of all IHME team members. 

IHME has an excellent opportunity for a Lead Research Scientist on the Math Sciences and Computational Algorithms team. As a Lead Research Scientist you will lead a research project and/or research team for a defined research area utilizing your established project management and supervisory skills. You will develop research strategy; establish deadlines, deliverables, and resources; and provide methodological advice, interpretation, statistical analysis, and visualization of research area to meet IHME’s objectives.

We are looking for someone who has experience with analysis of big data, the ability to develop methods and tools, keeping up-to-date with the latest scientific findings and engineering/technical advances, and a maturing peer reviewed publication record. 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 advances and are able to translate these into your research. Overall, you will be joining an agile and collaborative team environment. This position is contingent on project funding availability.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Lead a research project and/or research team in defining, executing, and managing analytic plans; developing research strategy; establishing deadlines, deliverables, and resources; and providing methodological advice, interpretation, statistical analysis and visualization of research area to meet IHME’s objectives. Lead external collaboration efforts, innovative technological advances, and oversee areas of the research for a defined research area. Drive new methods to analyze structured and unstructured data; introduce novel diagnostics and presentation paradigms to communicate results. Highly developed command of one or more of the research areas at IHME, including the methodology and its components.
• May supervise staff to include: hiring and training, leading workflow, priority setting, reviewing work and establishing quality standards, conducting regular performance assessments, providing mentorship and professional development for employees. Assess skill gaps and identify training needs for team. Develop internal trainings to support professional development and succession planning for junior staff. Develop and disseminate educational materials to help promote use of cutting-edge methodologies for a wide range of global health applications. Work broadly across the Institute to find opportunities for high-impact applications of methods.
• Model causes of death, non¬fatal health outcomes, and risk factor exposures using data from a multitude of sources and applying complex algorithms and statistical applications.
• Carry out quantitative analyses and participate in reciprocal research projects. Interpret and vet results from junior staff; formulate conclusions. Critique results. Understand ground-breaking techniques and creatively apply them in experimental ways to explore efficiencies and potential improvements to results.
• Develop, test, and refine new statistical methods and build tools so that others can apply them. Use a variety of coding languages to do so (e.g. R, Python, Java, C, C++).
• Publish peer reviewed manuscripts and publications as first author and present results to scientific, policy, and donor audiences. Contribute to writing grant applications.
• Communicate methods and results to different audiences, helping them to learn and apply new skills.
• Other duties as assigned that fall within reasonable scope of research team.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

• PhD or MD in public health, epidemiology, statistics, biostatistics, math, economics, quantitative social sciences or related field plus six years' related experience

Equivalent education/experience will substitute for all minimum qualifications except when there are legal requirements, such as a license/certification/registration.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS:

• Growing external peer network where sought out as a resource for having strong command with a given disease, risk, key indicator, relevant methodological area, and the related data sources and scientific underpinnings.
• Experience supervising individuals on scientific research processes, analysis, and professional development.
• Demonstrated project management experience including demonstrated ability to think independently, be flexible, and juggle multiple priorities required.
• Excellent analytic, critical thinking, and quantitative skills.
• 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. R, Python, Stata, SAS, SQL).
• Excellent written and oral communication skills required, including track record of publishing peer-reviewed publications as first author and co-author. Intermediate level of quality, quantity, and degree of innovation of scholarly publications in multiple peer-reviewed journals.
• Ability to thrive and guide others in a dynamic, team-oriented research environment with a focus on producing innovative, policy-relevant results.
• A commitment to working 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:
• Experience with machine learning, data mining, and analytic techniques.
• Track record in educational excellence, with expertise in teaching computational and mathematical techniques in global health applications.
• Broad hands-on experience across different global health applications.

WORKING CONDITIONS:

• Weekend and evening work sometimes required.
• This position is open to anyone authorized to work in the U.S. The UW is not able to sponsor visas for staff positions.
• Office is located in Seattle, Washington. This position is eligible to work fully remote in the U.S.; work schedule required to overlap 50% of IHME office hours, between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Pacific Time.

Application Process:
The application process for UW positions may include completion of a variety of online assessments to obtain additional information that will be used in the evaluation process.  These assessments may include Work Authorization, Cover Letter and/or others.  Any assessments that you need to complete will appear on your screen as soon as you select “Apply to this position”. Once you begin an assessment, it must be completed at that time; if you do not complete the assessment you will be prompted to do so the next time you access your “My Jobs” page. If you select to take it later, it will appear on your "My Jobs" page to take when you are ready. Please note that your application will not be reviewed, and you will not be considered for this position until all required assessments have been completed.