Post-Doctoral Research Scientist at African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC)

The African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC) is a leading Africa-based, African-led, international research institution headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. APHRC conducts policy-relevant research on population, health, education, urbanization and related development issues in sub-Saharan Africa.

The MADIVA (Multi-morbidity Action through Data Insights and Visualisation for Africa) project aims to develop data science techniques and solutions to tackle the problem of multimorbidity in Africa – the problem of multiple co-occurring diseases significantly adding to the health burden in Africa. Our primary research sites in urban Nairobi, Kenya and rural Bushbuckridge, South Africa each have rich data sets from longitudinal studies collected by the health and demographic surveillance systems based there, together with a nascent set of clinical health records and genomic data. We will develop and apply data science techniques to link the different data sets, build dashboards for different stakeholders and apply new machine learning techniques to automatically stratify populations for risk profiles to different diseases, including the use of polygenic risk scores.

The APHRC seeks to recruit a Post-Doctoral Research Scientist join a vibrant Non-Communicable Diseases Research group.

Responsibilities

S/he will be primarily responsible for developing machine-learning models with complex and varied health-related data (demography, health records, health data, digital, biochemical and genetic data) and will work closely with a team of scientists to analyze, and interpret the large data sets and use this information to develop data-driven solutions to health challenges under the MADIVA project.

The Post-Doctoral Research Scientist will:**

· Contribute to the development of APHRC’s Big Data agenda through utility of data science and/or artificial intelligence (AI) tools including data mining, development of data visualization tools, statistical modelling, among others;

· Contribute in application of innovative analytics to systematically extract information from data sets that are too large/complex to be dealt with by traditional approaches;

· Be responsible for, and coordinate the processes of tracking, collating, organizing and making available population health data from diverse sources;

· Make contributions as part of a scientific research team in Chronic Disease Management projects;

· Lead the development of study protocols and tools and ensure ethical approvals and research permits are obtained;

· Secure and manage the necessary human, financial and material resources of the project;

· Lead the development of project reports;

· Oversee data quality and analyses;

· Lead and contribute to proposal development and fundraising for research projects in the unit;

· Mentor junior researchers and facilitate in the Center’s training programs as needed;

· Represent the Center at high level national, regional and international forums, including relevant technical working groups and expert committees;

· Contribute to the development of information systems and provision of analytical methodological support and advices to researchers;

· Define own area of research interest in Data Science/Statistics/Public health through developing proposals, concept notes and publishing in the area;

· Contribute to institutional publications including and not limited to lay dissemination materials such as policy/research briefs and fact sheets; and

· Contribute to policy engagement and the unit’s strategic planning.

Qualifications and Experience

· PhD in Statistics, Data Science, Biostatistics, Public Health or equivalent in related disciplines with a specialization in Health Informatics; graduated in the last 2 years.

· Data management, programming and modelling experience.

· Demonstrated experience in applying big data analytics (preferably in healthcare).

· Evidence of publications is an essential requirement.

· Highly motivated and committed to biomedical research.

· Interest in Epidemiology and preferably chronic diseases including multimorbidity.