Job Vacancy Announcement – Data Scientist (Contractor)

Program Overview

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), a major research component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), is seeking exceptional candidates for a Data Scientist position within the NIMH Section on Developmental Neurogenomics (SDN).

The SDN is a highly dynamic and collaborative multidisciplinary research group dedicated to better understanding pediatric-onset mental health disorders at both clinical and biological levels of analysis. This broad goal is approached by focusing on rare genetic variants and sex differences as major modifiers of psychiatric risk, and by innovating neuroinformatic solutions for multimodal brain research. The Section publishes high-impact research on: (i) impacts of rare genetic syndromes on human behavior, cognition, brain organization and genome function; (ii) sex differences at genomic and neuroimaging levels of analyses; and (iii) new informatic tools for moving between neuroimaging and genomic measures of the human brain. The Data Scientist role is core to all these efforts, and success in the role requires a combination of technical expertise plus superb communication and collaboration skills.

Position Overview

The successful candidate will develop, maintain and apply databases and pipelines for complex clinical, neuroimaging, and genomic data. This role is pivotal in integrating high-dimensional data, enabling innovative analysis, and refining insights into neurodevelopmental disorders. The successful candidate will collaborate with interdisciplinary teams and support the design of scalable data solutions. This position offers extensive opportunities along diverse axes of career and personal development (skills acquisition, mentoring, scientific presentation and writing skills, grants, networking etc).

Key job duties fall into two main components:

Core roles:

• Importing and standardizing large neuroimaging and genomic datasets for linkage with accompanying demographic, cognitive and behavioral variables on study participants seen at NIH
• Advising on database design (in collaboration with existing SQL database designer) to facilitate scalable and reproducible downstream analyses
• Designing, developing, maintaining and running robust analytic pipelines to generate phenotypes for downstream analysis
• Compiling pipeline outputs for downstream analysis and advising other lab members on statistical approaches for analysis of high-dimensional data.
• Working with of cloud-based analytic platforms (for e.g. UK Biobank and US All of Us data)

Domain-specific opportunities:

• In addition to the core roles above, this post also includes an optional domain-specific data science/engineering component that can be focused on either behavioral/cognitive, neuroimaging or genomic data as best suits the post holder’s skill set and interests
• This domain-specific component would account for up to 25% of the working week and allow the post holder to lead their own informatic and data analytic projects in any area of their choosing within the Section’s diverse research portfolio

Qualifications

Essential

• An advanced degree (Ph.D. or Master’s) in computer science, data science, statistics, psychology, neuroscience or a related field.
• 2+ years’ experience in working with high-dimensional behavioral, neuroimaging or genomic data
• Experience in software design, biomedical, psychological research, or data science
• Extensive experience with diverse programming and analysis languages including Python, R, shell (linux/unix/bash) is necessary, along with facility with learning new technical skills independently.

Desirable, but not essential

• Experience working with developmental datasets.
• Proven track record of publishing quantitative research papers.
• For the domain-specific component above – track record of experience and productivity with specialized data analytic tools according to the chosen data domain of focus (e.g. FreeSurfer, HCP workbench for structural neuroimaging data / seurat, Azimuth, dreamlet for snRNAseq )

Benefits

The Behavioral Data Scientist/Research Psychologist will be appointed at a salary commensurate with their qualifications and experience. In addition, full federal benefits, including leave, and thrift savings plan (401K equivalent), will be provided. See: https://hr.nih.gov/benefits 

How to Apply

Interested candidates should submit a cover letter and curriculum vitae to Dr. Armin Raznahan at raznahana@mail.nih.gov. Please include "SDN Data Scientist Application" in the subject line. Applications will be accepted until January 10, 2025. The position is subject to a background check.

HHS and NIH are equal opportunity employers

The NIH is dedicated to building a diverse community in its training and employment programs and encourages the application and nomination of qualified women, minorities, and individuals with disabilities.