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.

The PhD position is embedded in the novel Netherlands Consortium of Dementia Cohorts, a unique project to unravel the etiology of dementia in order to find clues for primary prevention by performing pooled analyses of 9 ongoing prospective cohort studies on cognitive aging and dementia from the Netherlands.  In this project, the successful candidate will be responsible for the transformation of each cohort dataset into data stations that comply with FAIR data principles, as well as implementing the Personal Health Train infrastructure for federated analysis and distributed learning. Due to growing ethical concerns and legal barriers to share data, distributed learning solutions where algorithms are sent to the data (instead of the other way around) are rapidly gaining popularity. The successful candidate will undertake research on, as well as designing and applying these solutions to a highly interesting project. In addition to this project, the successful candidate will apply statistical and machine learning techniques to a range of clinical problems.

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 are a highly motivated investigator with a master’s degree in data science, computer science, artificial intelligence, machine learning or equivalent.

Experience with statistics, machine learning, data integration, ontologies, Semantic Web, medical imaging and software engineering skills are a plus.

Generic:

You are open-minded, independent, pragmatic and result-oriented individual with a strong international orientation who is able to take initiative. 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.

Fixed-term contract: 4 Years.

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.

GROW - School for Oncology and Developmental Biology

GROW focuses on research and teaching of (epi)genetic, cellular and (micro)environmental factors and mechanisms underlying normal (embryonic and fetal) and abnormal (cancer) development, with emphasis on translational research aiming at innovative approaches for individualizing prevention, patient diagnostics and treatment.

https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/research/school-oncology-and-developmental-biology

Clinical Data Science group

The Clinical Data Science group is a computer science focused department embedded within a clinical environment (MAASTRO Clinic and Maastricht UMC). The Clinical Data Science group focuses 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.