Seeking postdoc in data sciences and computational epidemiology

Job Req.: 303451

Position Title: Post Doctorate RA - Data Sciences and Analytics

Description : A 1+ years postdoctoral position is available in the Data Sciences and Analytics Group at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. We are looking for a strongly motivated person with excellent skills in social media analytics research. Themes of interest include the development, implementation, and resulting analyses related to social network analysis, human language technologies, machine learning, infectious disease epidemiology, and data collection and analysis.  The candidate should have a keen interest in multidisciplinary research and have a PhD (or expect to have one for the starting date) in physics, applied mathematics, computer science, epidemiology, quantitative biology or any close related discipline. Proven abilities to work independently and to quickly adapt to new scientific environments are essential for this position. Superb communication skills to successfully collaborate with the other members of the group, and a strong working knowledge of both oral and written English are required.

The selected candidate will join the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, WA and will work in collaboration with Dr. Courtney Corley and research staff in the Computational and Statistical Analytics Division. The candidate will support several exciting projects whose objectives include the development of internet-based systems to support biological threat surveillance transforming analytic environments to dramatically enhance capabilities for infectious disease prevention, detection, investigation and response. Ongoing research efforts with the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and USAID draw on a variety of data sources incorporating vetted proprietary health data, high volume public social media, and environmental data. The combination of these diverse sources provides analysts with a full spectrum of information to understand the threat landscape. This research utilizes cloud-based storage and processing resources, to enable a suite of web services provide access to the data and analytic products generated from the analysis of the unstructured text, temporal, geospatial and multimedia data for the purposes of biosurveillance. Specific research tools under development include streaming analytics that integrate weather, social media, vector and disease information to forecast vector-borne disease outbreaks, machine learning methods to integrate health surveillance data with social media to accelerate timeliness of respiratory disease detection, and responding to disease post disaster through sophisticated social media analytics. .

Minimum Requirements :

·         Candidates must have received a PhD within the past five years from an accredited college or university.

·         All staff at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory must be able to demonstrate the legal right to work in the United States.

Minimum Qualifications :

·         Effective written and oral communication is required

·         Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to collaborate effectively on diverse teams are required.

·         Record of research accomplishments required, preferably peer-reviewed publications.

·         Proven ability to work independently and to quickly adapt to new scientific environments.

·         Preferred Education/Credential : Degree in physics, applied mathematics, computer science, epidemiology, quantitative biology, or closely related field.

Equal Employment Opportunity: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is an Affirmative Action / Equal Opportunity Employer and supports diversity in the workplace. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital or family status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or genetic information.

All staff at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory must be able to demonstrate the legal right to work in the United States.

About Tri-Cities : http://www.visittri-cities.com/ The Tri-Cities started out with 3 main communities: Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland - but the phenomenal growth of neighboring West Richland has made the area more of a "Quad-City". Located just hours from Seattle, WA and Portland, OR, the area is embraced by the beauty of a desert landscape and connected by the Columbia, Snake, and Yakima rivers. The Tri-Cities offers a multitude of recreational, cultural, and historical activities and is a great place to visit and live. We're known for our premier golf courses, award-winning wineries, unique shopping, and abundant outdoor and water recreation. Click on the link above to learn more about the various communities. PNNL is located in Richland, WA.

2014 ISDS Conference Plenary Speakers Announced

The 2014 ISDS Scientific Program Committee is proud to announce the opening and closing keynote speakers for the 2014 ISDS Conference taking place December 10-11, with Pre-Conference Trainings on December 9th, in Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Opening Keynote
Ziad Memish, MD, FRCPC, FACP, FIDSA, Senior Consultant Adult Infectious Diseases, King Fahad Medical City

In a June 2014 profile published in The Lancet, Dr. Memish is referred to as the 'father of mass gatherings medicine.' His talk at the 2014 ISDS Conference will focus on his public health experience during his time at the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including population health surveillance during the Hajj and epidemiological work related to the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) outbreak.

Dr. Ziad Memish is a senior Consultant Adult Infectious Diseases at King Fahad Medical City, Professor at the College of Medicine, Alfaisal University and Adjunct Professor in the Hubert Department of Public Health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University.

Positions held include Executive Director Infection Prevention & Control Saudi National Guard Health Affairs, Director Gulf Cooperation Council States and WHO Collaborating Center for Infection Control, and Deputy Minister of Health for Public Health.

He has served as a member of several international committees with WHO and ISID, and of numerous regional organizations. He established the National Infectious Diseases training program at the Saudi Council for Health Specialities.

In November 2007, he was awarded "The King Abdulaziz Medal from the First Degree" - the highest award on a National level in Saudi Arabia for achievements in the field of infectious diseases and infection control.

Closing Keynote
Linda Rae Murray, MD, MPH, Chief Medical Officer, Cook County Department of Public Health 

Dr. Murray will be speaking about the fundamental role of social justice in public health, and how practitioners and researchers involved in public health surveillance can incorporate the determinants of health into their work, particularly given some of the current and anticipated challenges facing public health, including economic downturns, emerging infectious diseases, healthcare accessibility, and politics.

Dr. Murray has spent her career serving the medically underserved. She has worked in a variety of settings including practicing Occupational Medicine at a Workers Clinic in Canada, Residency Director for Occupational Medicine at Meharry Medical College, and Bureau Chief for the Chicago Department of Health under Mayor Harold Washington. Dr. Murray served as Medical Director of the federally funded health center, Winfield Moody, serving Cabrini Green Public Housing Project in Chicago. Dr. Murray has been an active member of a wide range of local and national organizations including serving as a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), and the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Board of Directors of Trinity Health (a large Catholic Health system). She serves on the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety & Health (NACOSH). 

In 1997, Dr. Murray returned to the Cook County Health System where she served as Chief Medical Officer -Primary Care for the twenty-three primary care and community health centers comprising the Ambulatory & Community Health Network of the Cook County Bureau of Health Services. The Cook County Bureau of Health is one of the nation's largest public system of medical care and operates three hospitals, the public health department for suburban Cook County, health services a County Jail and the network of health centers (ACHN) operated by the County. Today she serves as the Chief Medical Officer for the Cook County Department of Public Health of the Cook County Health & Hospital System, the state certified public health agency for suburban Cook County. She practices as a general internist at Woodlawn Health Center, is an attending physician in the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Cook County Hospital and an adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health (Occupational & Environmental Health and the Health Policy & Administration Departments). She plays a leadership role in many organizations including NACCHO's (National Association of City & County Health Officers) Health Equity & Social Justice Team, the national executive board of American Public Health Association and serves on the board of the Chicago based Health and Medicine Policy Research Group. She remains passionate about increasing the number of Black and Latino health professionals and serves as the co-chair for the Urban Health Program Community Advisory Committee at the University of Illinois.

In November 2010, Dr. Murray became President of the American Public Health Association. She has been a voice for social justice and health care as a basic human right for over forty years. 

Learn more about the 2014 ISDS Conference.

HIMSS and NACCHO Announce the Public Health and HIE Toolkit

Blog posted sourced from epinformatics.wordpress.com:

NACCHO, in collaboration with the Health Information Management Systems Society, have worked together to create the Public Health & HIE Toolkit. This tool was designed to help public health officials understand, engage, and participate in Health Information Exchange.

“The first priority of local health departments is to make it easier for people to be healthy and safe. Health information technology increases the capacity of local health departments to be able to do that. The new Health Information Exchange (HIE) Toolkit for Public Health will allow local health departments to automatically receive and analyze electronic health data to identify diseases that affect our communities, and it will enable local health departments to improve public health surveillance and response to those diseases,” said Roland Gamache, Ph.D., MBA, Senior Director of Informatics at the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). “NACCHO was pleased to collaborate with HIMSS on this important resource. We value the partnership role we play with HIE organizations.”

The Toolkit was developed to help public health departments understand:

• What HIE services are and what types of organizations are providing them.

• How a health department might use or support such services.

• How to assess whether the value of participating in HIE will be worthwhile.

Local health departments use heath information to manage the well-being of their communities. This information includes syndromic surveillance, laboratory results, and immunization records. Local health departments are both users and contributors of health data. This toolkit will help local health departments decide the most advantageous way to participate in HIE. The following link will take you to an infographic that explains the relationship between public health and HIE.

“The Public Health & HIE Toolkit includes clear and concise organization and core information. The tools included in it will assist our department in analyzing HIE opportunities for risks and benefits; preparing recommendations for policy and resource allocation and developing needed data use agreements. I anticipate consulting the toolkit over the next few years, as we move toward health information exchange in our community,” said Kathy Cook, Information and Fiscal manager, Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department.

You can read the full press release on the HIMSS website.

The Requirements Dilemma: choosing between 'shall' statements and 'user stories'

Please join ASTHO for a unique opportunity to engage with Dr Seater on the benefit of looking at requirements gathering through the perspective of the "user story."

Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Time: 2:00PM EDT

Speaker: Dr. Robert Seater

Abstract:

Dr. Seater will discuss the fundamental contradiction that requirements often present us with -- that they are both critical and a waste of time.  Understanding how this contradiction comes about helps us to address the problem by choosing an appropriate notation based on the phase of the project.  He will discuss the tradeoffs and appropriate use of traditional 'shall' statements and 'user stories'.  These tradeoffs are especially important to user-facing projects, but they are also valuable to projects focused on infrastructure or modernization.

Bio:

Dr. Seater received his PhD from MIT in Computer Science, where he worked on a technique for mapping requirements to automated software analysis and applying the technique to a working radiation therapy machine.  He is currently a research scientist at MIT Lincoln Lab, where he works on requirements.  When he is not worrying about requirements, Dr. Seater plays and publishes strategic tabletop board games.

Register now!

CDC seeking volunteers for PH-EHR Vendors Collaboration Initiative webinar panel

CDC is looking for volunteers from public health to be part of a panel during the PH-EHR Vendors Collaboration Initiative webinar scheduled for July 15th from 1-2 pm ET.

The plan is to first have a generic presentation on the Stage 2 MU registration and onboarding process and then the panel members will share and discuss their experiences (barriers, challenges, etc.) while onboarding providers.  Panel members would not need to prepare or provide any slides.  Panel members would also have the opportunity to respond to questions from the audience during the webinar.

Please let STandon@cdc.gov know if you are interested by July 8th COB

Thanks in advance.