Senior / Principal Statistician - Bioinformatics & Biostatistics

Senior / Principal Statistician - Bioinformatics & Biostatistics

This is a full-time permanent position on Crick terms and conditions of employment.

This role is advertised as a Senior / Principal Statistician meaning the correct level will be assigned to the successful candidate subject to skills and experience.

Summary

The Francis Crick Institute seeks to recruit a collaborative and self-motivated Statistician with excellent technical skill and extensive experience analysing complex data sets in a biological research environment, at either Senior or Principal level. In this role, you will be working as part of the Bioinformatics & Biostatistics Scientific Technology Platform (STP) , a talented and dynamic team to provide statistical analysis expertise to help Francis Crick research groups achieve their research ambitions.

The Bioinformatics & Biostatistics STP is a centre of excellence in Data Science that leverages its knowledge to facilitate discovery across the Crick and extract biological meaning from large, complex and diverse datasets.

• Work collaboratively across the Crick to co-design experiments, formulate analysis plans and interpret results.
• Perform standard and advanced analyses of high-dimensional, data-intensive and complex research questions across the biomedical research spectrum using bioinformatics, biostatistics, machine learning and AI approaches.
• Empower biologists to understand their datasets, using our broad training portfolio to enable data curiosity and develop analytical skills.
• Design innovative approaches for recurrent and novel projects, and deploy corresponding tools internally, across the Crick and beyond.

You will apply your biostatistics skills to technology-driven research questions across the broad range of biomedical research activities found at the Crick. The successful applicants will have a proven track record in collaborative academic research, including statistical analysis and interpretation of large, complex datasets. You should possess a PhD with significant experience in bioinformatics, mathematics, or statistics biomedical-based research with a large computational component.

Project summary

In this position, you will play a key role in providing Francis Crick research groups with access to statistical expertise. You will work closely with the scientific groups to design experiments, explore and analyse complex data sets, formulate analysis strategies, implement statistical approaches, interpret and explain analysis results and help inform research decisions. You will build bespoke statistical analysis pipelines using the latest methods to help deliver results. In addition, you will have the opportunity to develop others through mentoring.

In addtion for the Principal role:

Working with the leadership, you will lead on all aspects of complex statistical analysis projects involving data from the latest cutting-edge experiments run at the Crick. You will work to build collaborative relationships with researchers and group members. You will have the opportunity to help develop the group by taking on analysis development, project management and staff development projects. In addition, you bare responsibilities for developing the general level of statistical thinking across the Institute.

Key responsibilities

• Provide statistical analysis expertise to help Francis Crick scientists achieve their research objectives.
• Provide expertise to inform on the experimental and analysis design process.
• Analyse complex biological data sets using a wide range of statistical analysis approaches, biological resources and bioinformatic methods to deliver on complex bespoke analysis goals.
• Interpret, evaluate and apply novel statistical analysis approaches to build bespoke analysis pipelines to solve research questions.
• Apply statistical expertise to help scientists interpret results and make research decisions.
• Help support the analysis efforts of the Bioinformatics & Biostatistics group by providing expert statistical support to other group members.
• Work independently at all points of the data analysis workflow.
• Help to develop others by mentoring and sharing expertise and experience.
• Help to support and develop group project management and reporting procedures.
• Continue professional development through maintaining awareness of developments in the bioinformatics, biostatistics and research communities.
• Play a role in developing statistical capabilities and understanding across the Institute regarding awareness, analysis approaches, software and training.
• Participate and contribute to Crick meetings, workshops and seminars.
• Publish where appropriate.

In addition for the Principal role:

• Lead collaborative statistical analysis projects involving multiple statisticians, bioinformaticians and researchers.
• Provide leadership within the group in line with core Crick values to help achieve group and institute objectives.
• Take on specific group responsibilities in analysis development, project management and staff development.
• Provide support to group management in managing projects and developing the group.
• Line management of some members of the Bioinformatics and Biostatistics STP as required including assisting and independently performing PDRs
• Support the statistical training and development of statisticians and bioinformaticians within and outside of the group.

Key experience and competencies

The post holder should embody and demonstrate our core Crick values: bold, imaginative, open, dynamic and collegial, in addition to the following:

Essential Qualifications, experience and competencies:

• A degree in a relevant subject with an extensive mathematical component.
• Excellent scientific analysis skills.
• Extensive experience applying statistical analysis techniques to solve complex data analysis problems in a collaborative biological research environment.
• Experience in statistical modelling, machine learning or Bayesian inference.
• Expert-level statistical programming experience in at least one programming language such as R, Python, or another language relevant to the role.
• Experience applying statistical data analysis to multiple concurrent projects in a collaborative biological research environment to provide publication-quality analysis results to researchers.
• Experience in applying expertise to the experimental and analysis design process.
• A good understanding and experience of working with NGS data.
• An understanding of the statistical techniques used in the analysis of NGS data.
• The ability to work independently at all aspects of the analysis project workflow.
• Experience in mentoring and sharing expertise with others.
• The ability to organise and prioritise workload within a project management framework.
• Excellent scientific communication skills within a research environment, building highly effective working relationships with team and customers.

In addition for the Principal role:

• A deep technical understanding of statistical analysis approaches applied to biological research data and experimental design.
• The ability to mentor and develop statisticians and bioinformaticians at all stages of the analysis project workflow.
• Extensive experience interacting with research leads to helping solve and develop research questions.

Desirable Qualifications, experience and competencies:

• Familiarity with NGS analysis methodologies and protocols.
• Expertise in one or more specific genomic technology.
• An understanding of programming, particularly regarding big data, data visualisation and data-mining techniques within a genomic setting.
• Knowledge of research areas relevant to Crick research.
• Experience in software development processes and management.
• Experience in teaching statistics.

Find out what benefits the Crick has to offer:

For more information on our great pay and benefits package please click here:

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion:

We welcome applications from all backgrounds. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities, regardless of ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, pregnancy, age, disability, or civil partnership, marital or family status. We particularly welcome applications from people who are Minority Ethnic as they are currently underrepresented in the Crick at this level.

Diversity is essential to excellence in scientific endeavour. It increases breadth and perspective, leading to more innovation and creativity. We want the Crick to be a place where everyone feels valued and where diversity is celebrated and seen as part of the foundation for our Institute's success.

The Crick is committed to creating equality of opportunity and promoting diversity and inclusivity. We all share in the responsibility to actively promote dignity, respect, inclusivity and equal treatment and it is our aim to ensure that these principles are reflected and implemented in all strategies, policies and practices.

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