Postdoctoral researcher in multidisciplinary, quantitative research on lifestyle and brain health

Job description

To make better decisions regarding healthcare use and lifestyle choices, we need information about the benefits and costs of these decisions. Different types of large-scale observational data sets, such as cohort studies, clinical registries and claims data, typically contain information on different types of descriptive data, benefits and costs. Analyzing these different types of data using a multidisciplinary approach holds the promise to deliver new insights that may help to improve health-related decisions at the individual, the organizational and the system level. We are a multidisciplinary group who are initiating the project ‘A Lifecourse and Individual-based View on Lifestyle to Enhance health’ (ALIVE). ALIVE is one out of ten multidisciplinary Convergence Flagship projects that is jointly initiated and funded by Erasmus Medical Center, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Delft University of Technology for the duration of five years.

This research project is embedded in the Convergence Health & Technology: Shaping the future of health and healthcare. For this project, we are recruiting a postdoctoral fellow. This researcher will work on peer-reviewed publications on combining large observational data sets. This will not only contribute to answering important questions in a way that is not feasible when analyzing these data separately, but this will also be used as showcases that show the potential of combining data to other researchers at Erasmus MC and beyond. We have access to observational data and have started obtaining permission to link these data. These data enable us to apply the idea of biological age to brain data and use this framework to study disease-related decisions such as lifestyle choices and decisions related to care use. The postdoctoral fellow will generate findings on the health and health care use of people with specific diseases such as dementia. For this, the postdoctoral fellow will build on ideas developed as part of Convergence and leverage the unique datasets available to the team with their own ideas and their quantitative research skills. The findings will be published in scientific articles and presentations.

Furthermore, the postdoctoral fellow will be taking the lead in creating a data science network to collect, combine and provide data to support cross-study (e.g., cohorts, registries, national databases) and use their central position within the ALIVE project to play a key role in multidisciplinary research collaborations. The postdoctoral fellow will have the opportunity to participate in courses related to the research agenda

Work environment

A healthy population and excellence in healthcare through research and education. This is what Erasmus MC stands for. Conducting groundbreaking work, pushing boundaries and leading the way in research, education, and healthcare. We are practical people with a high level of expertise, working hard to improve and renew the healthcare of today and the public health of tomorrow.

You will be primarily appointed at the Department of Epidemiology but will be closely working together with the Health Economics department at the Erasmus School of Health Policy and Management, and several other clinical departments. In addition, you will play a key role in the Convergence Flagship “A Lifecourse and Individual-based View on Lifestyle to Enhance health (ALIVE)”. Within convergence, TU Delft, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Erasmus MC have joined forces. The urgent and complex societal challenges of our time ask for fundamentally new forms of cooperation, whereby the boundaries between institutes and disciplines are crossed to create new perspectives and solutions. This means that you will work with researchers from multiple disciplines at all three research institutes. This active role in within the ALIVE Flagship means that, in addition to doing research, you contribute to the flagship in other ways. Specifically, you take the lead in developing a business plan to make the knowledge that is acquired and centralized within this Flagship a viable service that may be provided to researchers of TU Delft, Erasmus MC and Erasmus University in the long-term. Furthermore, you work with other researchers to identify, get access to, and combine the datasets needed for their projects.

Qualifications and skills

We are looking for a candidate who has the following qualifications and skills:
Required:

• Has a PhD degree or will get this degree in 2023 with prior research on health and health care using statistics or econometrics, epidemiology or data science.
• Is willing to work in multidisciplinary teams.
• Can take the lead in research activities and generating and accumulating knowledge to create societal impact.
• Teamplayer with collaborative skills, but also able to work independently - Has experience with analyzing large-scale observational data, especially in the biomedical domain using R, Python or another programming language.
• Has a strong command of English.

Highly desired:

• Experience with high-performance computing.
• Experience with Linux operating system and Unix shell.
• Since the datasets are in Dutch: basic reading ability in Dutch. Or being willing to acquire this skill.

Before you apply please check our conditions for employment.

Terms of employment

• The gross monthly salary amouts to a maximum of € 5.919,- (scale 11) based on working experience and a fulltime workweek of 36 hours.
• Excellent fringe benefits, such as a 13th month that is already paid out in November and a individual travel expense package.
• Pension insurance with ABP. We take care of approximately 2/3 of the monthly contribution.
• Special benefits, such as a incompany physiotherapist and bicycle repairer. And there is also a gym where you can work on your fitness after work.

More information

For more information about this position, please contact Dr. Daphne Voormolen (voormolen@eshpm.eur.nl) or Dr. Daniel Bos (d.bos@erasmusmc.nl).

If you are excited by the thought of this position and would like to apply, please do so by using the application form on our website. Please note that applications will be shared with Erasmus University Rotterdam.

No agencies please.