The Center for Health Data Science (HeaDS), Faculty of Health and Medical Science, University of Copenhagen has an opening for a PhD trainee interested in health data science and generative deep learning. The contract will cover 3 years of employment with a start date of 6 January 2025.

About the Center for Health Data Science

The Center for Health Data Science (HeaDS) is a young, growing center that aims to strengthen data science skills at KU’s faculty of Health and Medical Science. The Center, led by Professor Anders Krogh, is made up of a well-connected research environment supported by several grants, the SUND Data Lab which provides data science support to researchers at the faculty, and a training infrastructure unit developed within the national Health Data Science Sandbox project. Our philosophy is a relaxed work environment driven by inspired and independent people.

Principal supervisor issenior consultant Jennifer Bartell ([email protected])

Start: 1 January 2025

Duration: 3 years as a PhD student

The position

The advertised position is focused on developing and applying deep generative models to large biomedical and health record datasets within a new research project supervised by Anders Krogh and Jennifer Bartell. This project has grown out of the Health Data Science Sandbox, a national computing infrastructure project developing training and research resources on academic HPCs.

The overarching aim of the research project (and the PhD traineeship) is to develop and test new methods for creating synthetic health datasets that can be used to support projects in precision medicine, health IT, and AI methods development. Synthetic health datasets are generated datasets that should capture the complex patterns of real, restricted-access clinical datasets via deep learning, yet pose minimal risk to patient privacy. The PhD traineeship will be a part of an NNF-funded collaboration with researchers from Aalborg University at the Center for Clinical Data Science and the Department of Law, and include interaction with the established Sandbox network. Together we aim to develop synthetic health datasets via benchmarked generative AI workflows, privacy metrics based on Bayesian statistics, and a framework for GDPR compliance of the developed methods.

Your profile

We’re looking for someone who wants to conduct innovative and impactful work at the crossroads of clinical data science, bioinformatics and generative deep learning – HeaDS has a history of success with such interdisciplinary research projects and we hope you are excited to take on this challenge.

Position requirements:

• MS degree in computer science, bioinformatics, biostatistics, or a field of science relating to data science (equivalent to a 2-year Danish master degree - for information on degrees already assessed, please see here or here)
• Programming skills in Python and familiarity with Linux
• Experience with deep learning approaches such as variational autoencoders or generative adversarial networks, etc
• Experience analyzing complex biomedical datasets (such as single cell transcriptomics data or clinical registry data)

Desirable skills / interests:

• Code sharing and collaboration using git/github
• Cloud computing and HPC
• AI ethics and privacy, synthetic data, and/or federated learning

Valued personal competencies:

• Independent, creative, and forward-thinking
• Responsible and considerate
• Happy to collaborate as well as work independently
• Proficient in English

Expectations as an PhD student:

• Carry out an independent research project under supervision
• Write scientific articles and a PhD thesis
• Complete PhD courses / equivalent education corresponding to 30 ECTS points
• Participate in national and international conferences and scientific meetings
• Complete a stay at an external research institution

Terms of employment
The average weekly working hours are 37 hours per week.

The position is a fixed-term position limited to a period of 3 years. The start date is 6 January 2025.

The employment is conditioned upon the applicant’s success­ful enrolment as a PhD student at the Graduate School at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen. This requires submission and acceptance of an application for the specific project formulated by the applicant.

The PhD study must be completed in accordance with The Ministerial Order on the PhD programme (2013) and the Faculty’s rules on achieving the degree.

Salary, pension and terms of employment are in accordance with the agree­ment between the Ministry of Taxation and The Danish Confederation of Professional Associations on Academics in the State. Depending on seniority, the monthly salary starts at approximately 30,700 DKK/Roughly 4,100 EUR (April 2024 level) plus pension.

Questions
For specific information about the PhD fellowship, please contact the principal supervisor.

General information about PhD studies at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences is available at the Graduate School’s website: https://healthsciences.ku.dk/phd/guidelines/

Application procedure
Your application must be submitted electronically by clicking ‘Apply now’ below. The application must include the following documents in PDF format:

1. Motivated letter of application (max. one page)

2. CV incl. education, experience, language skills and other skills relevant for the position

3. Certified copy of original Master of Science diploma and transcript of records in the original language, including an authorized English translation if issued in other language than English or Danish. If not completed, a certified/signed copy of a recent transcript of records or a written statement from the institution or supervisor is accepted. As a prerequisite for a PhD fellowship employment, your master’s degree must be equivalent to a Danish master’s degree. We encourage you to read more in the assessment database: https://ufm.dk/en/education/recognition-and-transparency/find-assessments/assessment-database. Please note that we might ask you to obtain an assessment of your education performed by the Ministry of Higher Education and Science

4. Publication list (if possible)

Application deadline: 4 September 2024, 23.59pm CET

We reserve the right not to consider material received after the deadline, and not to consider applications that do not live up to the abovementioned requirements.

The further process
After the expiry of the deadline for applications, the authorized recruitment manager selects applicants for assessment on the advice of the hiring committee. All applicants are then immediately notified whether their application has been passed for assessment by an unbiased assessor.

The assessor makes a non-prioritized assessment of the academic qualifications and experience with respect to the above-mentioned area of research, techniques, skills and other requirements listed in the advertisement.

Once the assessment work has been completed each applicant has the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment that relates to the applicant him/herself.

You find information about the recruitment process at: http://employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process/

The applicants will be assessed according to the Ministerial Order no. 242 of 13 March 2012 on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Universities.

Interviews are expected to be held in week 40

The University of Copenhagen wish to reflect the diversity of society and encourage all qualified candidates to apply regardless of personal background.

Kilde: Jobnet.dk