The Department of Medical Informatics is looking for two PhD students to work on cutting-edge health data science topics. This research will be performed in close collaboration with the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI) initiative, which is a global, multi-stakeholder, interdisciplinary collaborative to bring out the value of health data through large-scale analytics, and the EU-sponsored European Health Data and Evidence Network (EHDEN) and eTransafe projects, which develop frameworks to generate reliable real-world evidence.

The PhD student will conduct research on the use of Real World Data (RWD) to improve the treatment and management of patients with chronic conditions such as asthma/COPD. This research covers all aspects of treatment care starting from research on drug utilization, treatment patterns and treatment adherence, to real world safety and effectiveness research. Also, research on risk prediction, in particular prediction of disease onset, disease progression and related outcomes will be conducted. PhD students will be responsible - under guidance of their supervisors - to generate the research question and to conduct the studies from design, analysis and interpretation of the data. For this analysis, advanced machine-learning methods will be used in close collaboration with the Health Data Science team. This research will be conducted on a wealth of international health databases mapped to the OMOP Common Data Model allowing for rapid, high quality, and replicable research.

Candidates ideally have a background in Medicine, Pharmacy or Biomedical Informatics with proven interest in (Pharmaco)Epidemiology and Statistics and good analytical, computer and writing skills. Interest in data and/or text mining, machine learning, regression analysis and programming is required. The candidates must be highly motivated, willing to learn and demonstrate initiative in assigned tasks. Good written and verbal communication skills are desired. The candidate should be able to work independently in a multi-disciplinary team and have the required social skills to collaborate with all involved partners.

As a PhD student you will have a temporary position of two years (full-time) with a possible extension to four years. The gross monthly salary amounts a maximum of € 4.481,- (scale 10), depending on your level of education and relevant experience and based on a full-time working week of 36 hours. The terms of employment are in accordance with the Collective Bargaining Agreement for University Medical Centers (CAO UMC).

Erasmus MC

Our institute is internationally at the forefront of health data science and offers a dynamic, challenging, and cooperative research environment. The Department of Medical Informatics at Erasmus MC is specialized in using routine healthcare data. Currently the department is coordinating and collaborating in several projects that aim at building EU-wide and global federated data networks such as the EHDEN Data Network. The advisors for the PhD students will include Dr. Katia Verhamme , Dr. Peter Rijnbeek, Dr. Jan Kors and Prof. Johan van der Lei.