Senior Research Associate in Medical Statistics or Epidemiology

This post offers an excellent opportunity for a talented postdoctoral epidemiologist or medical statistician to join the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit (MRC IEU) within the School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, one of the leading centres for Epidemiology in the UK.

Your research will focus on mediation analysis – the study of factors that lie on the causal pathways from exposures to outcomes. Mediation analysis can increase understanding of mechanisms, provide aetiological insight, and identify potential intervention targets. Mediation analysis is a hot topic in epidemiology, and newly developed statistical methods alongside the increasing availability of ’omics data within cohort studies provide great scope for both applied and methodological research. In this role, you will employ a range of statistical methods for mediation analysis. Mendelian Randomization for mediation is a powerful tool that uses genetic variants as proxies for exposures and mediators of interest, thus avoiding bias due to confounding and measurement error. This approach will be used to study the role of metabolites and epigenetic modifications in the relationships between key exposures and health outcomes in large cohorts such as UK Biobank. In many cohorts, repeated measures data are available for exposures, mediators and outcomes of interest. Potential analysis methods for utilizing this detailed data for mediation analysis include structural equation modelling and newly developed causal analysis methods for mediation (counterfactual-based approaches), which have recently been extended to the case of multiple mediators.

You will work within the dynamic, multidisciplinary environment of the MRC IEU. You will collaborate with colleagues both from within the MRC IEU (e.g. Professors George Davey Smith and Kate Tilling) and other UK and international experts. Opportunities for continued training and career development are available, including the short courses run by the School of Social and Community Medicine and the University of Bristol staff development programme.

You will have a PhD (or equivalent research experience) in medical statistics, epidemiology (with strong statistical skills), or a related quantitative discipline and a track record of published research. You will have experience of advanced statistical methods, ideally either Mendelian Randomization, structural equation modelling, marginal structural models, or other methods for counterfactual-based approaches to mediation analysis. Depending on your skills and interests, there may be scope for your research to be primarily methodological, or a mixture of methodological and applied. The post is available full time for three years.

Interviews are expected to be in the week 27-31st March 2017. For an informal discussion about the post, please contact Dr Laura Howe – email laura.howe@bristol.ac.uk.

The closing date for applications is midnight on Sunday 19 March 2017.

The University is committed to creating and sustaining a fully inclusive culture.  We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and communities.