About the position 

Do you want to join our team as a postdoctoral fellow performing research highly relevant for the public health service?

We have an available position as a postdoctoral fellow (SKO 1352) at the University of Oslo - 3-years engagement – affiliated with the Centre for Precision Psychiatry at the Institute of Clinical Medicine.

The Centre for Precision Psychiatry is dedicated to research on severe mental and neuropsychiatric disorders. The Centre runs a series of multidisciplinary studies involving hospital departments in Oslo and several research groups at the University of Oslo. The main goal is to develop tools and knowledge for precision medicine in psychiatry, building on advanced statistical methods for analysis of large-scale human genetic and neuroimaging data, to better understand how biological, psychological, and environmental factors contribute to severe mental disorders, their treatment, and outcomes. 

The Centre has access to a large database of biomarkers, clinical, and cognitive variables, genotyping and sequencing data, and MRI brain imaging data on patients with severe mental disorders. In addition, we work closely with national population cohorts (Tromsø, HUSK, HUNT), and collaborate with Nordic partners to leverage the registry and biobank information across countries, as well as large international consortia, including the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) and the ENIGMA consortium. 

For more information about the Centre, please visit our website.

Project description

We invite applications for a postdoctoral fellowship for an ambitious researcher with a relevant PhD to be part of the MAGIC project. The aim of the project is to uncover the role of metabolic dysfunction in psychosis, through the use of genomics, metabolomics and neuroimaging data. 

A central part of the project is to develop and apply advanced biostatistical tools to predict clinical outcomes based on large-scale multimodal data. To achieve this goal, the researcher hired for this postdoctoral fellow position will work with the Centre’s datasets, analytical methodology, and computational tools, including state-of-the-art data storage and research infrastructure, hosted at the Services for sensitive data.

The Postdoctoral fellow will collaborate with clinicians, biologists and statisticians for interpretation of the results and for further development of the research line.

Our research environment is international, friendly and inspiring, and the position represents a unique opportunity for career development for a hard-working candidate. The Postdoctoral fellow will work in a multidisciplinary team with clinicians as well as with experts in statistics, applied mathematics, big data analysis, and computer science.

The main purpose of the fellowship is to qualify researchers for work in higher academic positions within their disciplines.

The duration of appointment is 3 years.

Your main tasks will be

• Develop and apply machine learning techniques and statistical analyses, including digital twin methodology, to fit and validate prediction model.
• Perform quality control and imputation of genotype and ´omics data, as well as processing of neuroimaging data from relevant datasets, including international and Norwegian samples. 
• Interpret and write up results from the prediction framework and further develop the research line. 

Qualifications 

You must have

• a relevant PhD, preferably within statistical genetics, ´omics, molecular biology, computer science, medicine, psychology, or equivalent
• statistical genetics expertise and hands-on experience with high performance computing and big data analysis
• skills in programming and scripting languages (R/Python/Matlab)
• excellent English scientific writing skills

In this role, you should have 

• expertise in psychiatry, to be able to design the analyses to target relevant clinical questions
• background from the health care sector and experience from international multisite research collaborations

Personal skills

• Well-organized with high working capacity and productivity
• Excellent team working skills, and ability to work in a multidisciplinary team of researchers
• Strong motivation and a genuine interest in applying analytical methodology and tools for precision medicine in psychiatry.

Personal suitability for the position will be emphasized.

We offer / We can offer you / Why should you choose us?

• Exciting and meaningful tasks in an organization with an important societal mission, contributing to knowledge development, education, and enlightenment that promote sustainable, fair, and knowledge-based societal development.
• A professionally stimulating working environment.
• Good welfare schemes.
• Opportunity of up to 1.5 hours a week of exercise during working hours.
• A workplace with good development and career opportunities. 
• Membership in the Statens Pensjonskasse, which is one of Norway's best pension schemes with beneficial mortgages and good insurance schemes.
• Salary in position as Postdoctoral Fellow, position code 1352 in salary range NOK 590 000 - 670 000, depending on competence and experience. From the salary, 2 percent is deducted in statutory contributions to the State Pension Fund.

Read more about the benefits of working in the public sector at Employer Portal.

Inclusive worklife and diversity at UiO

Inclusion and diversity are a strength. The University of Oslo has a personnel policy objective of achieving a balanced gender composition. Furthermore, we want employees with diverse professional expertise, life experience and perspectives.

If there are qualified applicants with disabilities, employment gaps or immigrant background, we will invite at least one applicant from each of these categories to an interview.

We hope that you will apply for the position. 

More information about gender equality initiatives at UiO can be found here.

Application

Your application should include:

• Application letter (statement of motivation, summarizing scientific work and research interest).
• CV (summarizing education, positions and academic work, and that lists scientific publications).
• A complete list of publications.
• Transcripts and certificates (academic transcripts only).
• Contact information for 2-3 references.

Application with attachments must be submitted via our recruitment system Jobbnorge, click "Apply for the position".

When applying for the position, we ask you to retrieve your education results from Vitnemålsportalen.no. If your education results are not available through Vitnemålsportalen, we ask you to upload copies of your transcripts or grades. Please note that all documentation must be in English or a Scandinavian language.

General information

The best qualified candidates will invited for interviews. 

Applicant lists can be published in accordance with Norwegian Freedom of Information Act § 25. When you apply for a position with us, your name will appear on the public applicant list. It is possible to request to be excluded from this list. You must justify why you want an exemption from publication and we will then decide whether we can grant your request. If we can't, you will hear from us.

Please refer to Regulations for the Act on universities and colleges chapter 3 (Norwegian) and Guidelines concerning appointment to post doctoral and research posts at UiO (Norwegian).

The University of Oslo has a transfer agreement with all employees that is intended to secure the rights to all research results etc.

Apply for the position

Questions about the position

• Ole Andreassen (Professor), +4799038893, o.a.andreassen@medisin.uio.no
• Dennis van der Meer (Researcher), dennisva@uio.no
• Aina Sandvik (HR-rådgiver), a.k.sandvik@medisin.uio.no