A position is immediately available to work on a collaborative project
between researchers at Dalhousie University (Dr. Joseph P. Bielawski &
Dr. Hong Gu, Dept. of Mathematics & Statistics) and the University
of Montreal (Dr. B. Jesse Shapiro, Dept. of Biological Sciences).
The project is part of a large-scale research initiative, ATRAPP, funded
by Genome Canada and focused on genomic solutions to the challenge of
assessing, predicting and preventing harmful toxic blooms. The successful
candidate will develop novel models for analyzing the structure and
metabolic interactions of complex aquatic microbial communities.
The research will follow up, and extend, the Bayesian hierarchical
modeling frameworks that were developed for microbial amplicon data
(BioMiCo: Microbiome. 2015 10;3:8), and for microbial metagenomic data
(BiomeNet: PLoS Comput Biol. 2014 10(11):e1003918). The objectives are
to develop novel (i) supervised methods that can simultaneously make
use of taxonomic and functional data derived from metagenomes, (ii)
statistical frameworks for comparing the fit of alternative models
for community structure, and (iii) temporal models for predicting
community transitions from serially sampled data. Qualified applicants
must have a Ph.D. in statistics, applied mathematics, computer science,
bioinformatics, or a related field in computational biology. A strong
background in statistics, and proficiency with scripting and programming
languages (e.g. python, perl, R, C/C++), is expected.
This position is based at Dalhousie University (Halifax, NS). The
recipient will join the Centre for Genomics and Evolutionary
Bioinformatics (CGEB), which is a vibrant interdisciplinary research
environment at Dalhousie University. More information about CGEB is
available at http://cgeb.dal.ca. The recipient will also have the
opportunity to visit the University of Montreal and interact with a
diverse group of biologists and computational biologists working on
bloom-forming freshwater cyanobacteria.
Start date: Review of applications will begin immediately and continue
until the position is filled. The start date is negotiable. Applications
will be reviewed as they are received. We thank all applicants,
however, only selected candidates will be contacted. Interested parties
should forward a cover letter, cv, statement of research interests,
and a sample of recent writing (article, report or other publication)
as well as contact information for 3 references to:
Joseph P. Bielawski
Department of Biology
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Dalhousie University
P.O. Box 15000
Halifax, NS, Canada B3H 4R2
(or)
email to j.bielawski@dal.ca