PhD in data science focusing on distributed learning for the prevention of cardiovascular disease

Maastricht University has a vacancy for a PhD student at the faculty of Health Medicine and Life Sciences in the Clinical Data Science group. At the Clinical Data Science group, we work on three main research areas: building global data sharing infrastructures; applying machine learning to build models from these data; and, using these models to improve healthcare.

This position is embedded in the CARRIER project, funded by the NWO’s Commit2Data round for Big Data & Health. The CARRIER project targets primary and secondary prevention of coronary artery disease (CAD) with a regional alliance of clinicians, citizens, legal experts, and data scientists. In CARRIER, patients will co-create a personalised health plan in collaboration with clinicians, adherence to which will be supported with an electronic lifestyle coach (eCoach). We will combine clinical data from different sources with socio-economic data to build predictive and prognostic models that will detect people at risk of CAD and drive the behaviour of the eCoach.

In this project, the successful candidate will be responsible for developing the distributed learning solutions for horizontally and vertically partitioned data necessary to build the prediction models that will drive the intervention. In doing so, they will face multiple challenges arising from the complexities inherent to distributed computing and the analysis of distributed heterogeneous data. These will include improving communication protocols among different network nodes and implementing algorithms that can aggregate local results that maintain differential privacy. In order to face these challenges, the successful candidate will have to dive into the thriving research field of distributed or federated learning, where major players like Google and Nvidia are starting to focus their attention.

Additionally, you will be part of a cross-faculty team consisting of computer scientists, medical physicists and medical informaticians, PhD students, software engineers and post-doctoral researchers.

Specific:

You have a master’s degree in data science, statistics, epidemiology, artificial intelligence, machine learning or equivalent.

Experience with predictive modelling, machine learning, causal inference, ontologies, medical imaging and software engineering skills are a plus.

Generic:

You are an open-minded, independent, result-oriented researcher with ownership who is able to take initiative and takes pride in their work. You are fluent in English, both in speech and writing. We are looking for a researcher with a special interest in health care research and motivated to build a scientific career in the area of basic and translational research. You will closely collaborate with other members of the Clinical Data Science group.

The terms of employment of Maastricht University are set out in the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities (CAO). Furthermore, local UM provisions also apply. For more information look at the website http://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/, Working at UM.

Maastricht University is renowned for its unique, innovative, problem-based learning system, which is characterized by a small-scale and student-oriented approach. Research at UM is characterized by a multidisciplinary and thematic approach, and is concentrated in research institutes and schools. Maastricht University has around 18,000 students and 4,300 employees. Reflecting the university's strong international profile, a fair amount of both students and staff are from abroad. The university hosts 6 faculties: Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Faculty of Law, School of Business and Economics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience.