We have multiple vacancies for excellent post-doctoral researchers to work on the development and application of advanced statistical and machine learning methods for the analysis of large scale neuroimaging and genomics data. Will you join our project? The overall focus of the FAMILY Consortium is to better understand the intergenerational transmission of mental health problems, such as mood disorders and psychosis, via multilevel research from the inheritance of the molecular DNA, to the epigenomic and (shared/familial) environmental processes, and systems neuroscience. Our role in this consortium is to integrate genomics and neuroimaging MRI data in ways that allow informative individual (genomic) profiling and (normative/predictive) modelling across different cohorts.
As a postdoc you will apply data-driven multivariate statistical techniques (e.g. PCA, ICA) and develop new analysis pipelines for interpretation and individual profiling on the basis of genomic data, and structural and functional MRI, in very large datasets (UK Biobank, ABCD, Generation R), with application to smaller, more clinically focused cohorts. You will also produce software or tools to enable other researchers to take advantage of the innovations produced in these projects. The projects are all highly interdisciplinary and integrate machine learning and statistics with neuroimaging, clinical neuroscience and psychiatry.
The project you will be contributing to is a HORIZON Europe consortium project "FAMILY"), in close collaboration with partners at Rotterdam Erasmus MC, Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research (Mainz), University College London, Harvard University, and others. The postdoc positions are hosted by the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior at the Radboud University Medical Center (Cognitive Neuroscience department) under the supervision of
Dr. Emma Sprooten and Prof. Christian Beckmann, and integrated into the wider academic research environment at the Donders Institute.
Tasks and responsibilities
- Discuss, plan and perform research in a stimulating environment.
- Optimize and apply new multivariate statistical approaches for genomic and neuroimaging analysis.
- Apply these statistical models to large-scale population cohorts and (smaller) clinical family trio datasets.
- Write scientific papers and publish findings in peer-reviewed journals and present at international scientific conferences.
- Produce software tools to enable for the use of the wider scientific community.
- Assist with the supervision of (Master) students and more junior staff.
- Work in an interdisciplinary team of international scientists.
- Collaborate with our consortium partners with excellent opportunities to develop and expand academic networks.