Research Assistant / Associate in Transmission Dynamics Modelling

Veterinary Epidemiology, Economics & Public Health Group

We are seeking a Research Assistant / Associate in Transmission Dynamics Modelling to join a Gates Foundation-funded project, “Modeling tools to support elimination of river blindness”, based within the Department of Pathobiology and Population Sciences and the RVC Global Centre for Neglected Tropical Disease Research.

The postholder will contribute to the development and application of stochastic transmission models for onchocerciasis, supporting global and country-level decision-making on the elimination of river blindness. The project addresses practical questions faced by elimination programmes, including when mass drug administration can safely be stopped, how post-treatment and post-elimination surveillance should be designed and interpreted, how resurgence risk should be assessed, and how intervention strategies should be evaluated in settings where treatment is constrained.

Working under the scientific and technical direction of Dr Martin Walker, and in close collaboration with technical partners at Imperial College London, the postholder will support model implementation, testing and documentation; preparation and integration of epidemiological, serological, entomological and intervention-history datasets; large-scale simulation generation; model fitting, validation and uncertainty analysis; and preparation of outputs to inform stopping thresholds, surveillance strategies, resurgence risk and decision-support analyses.

Applicants should have a strong quantitative background relevant to infectious disease dynamics, stochastic simulation, population modelling, statistical modelling, data analysis or quantitative epidemiology. For appointment as Research Associate, applicants should have a PhD awarded or near completion in a relevant discipline. For appointment as Research Assistant, applicants should have an MSc or equivalent quantitative, computational or research experience.

Applicants should have strong programming skills in at least one relevant language, such as R, Python, C or C++, and experience implementing, running, debugging or documenting computational models, simulations or analytical code. They should be able to work with existing codebases, analyse complex datasets, document work clearly, and communicate methods, assumptions, uncertainty and results to both modelling and non-modelling collaborators.

Experience with stochastic or individual-based models, high-performance or cluster computing, version control systems such as GitHub, reproducible workflows, Bayesian or likelihood-based inference, and neglected tropical diseases or disease elimination would be advantageous.

This role offers an opportunity to contribute to a collaborative, policy-relevant modelling project at the interface of infectious disease dynamics, surveillance, programme decision-making and neglected tropical disease elimination.

We offer a generous reward package and benefits including:

• Competitive and attractive pension package
• Generous 30 days annual leave (plus bank holidays + concessionary days)
• Access to free in-house CPD and funded external CPD
• A range of family friendly policies, including adoption, maternity and paternity pay and leave
• On site café and restaurant
• Free membership to the newly built Fitness and Wellbeing Centre located on site (gym, badminton, climbing wall, Zumba, yoga and Pilates classes included)
• Cycle to work scheme
• Free mini-bus service to and from Potters Bar station and Hawkshead Campus