POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE - TRANSLATIONAL MEDICINE - Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Life Sciences

POSITION TITLE: Postdoctoral Associate

ABOUT US: Scripps Research is a nonprofit biomedical institute ranked as one of the most influential in the world for its impact on innovation. We are celebrating our 100-year legacy. This significant milestone marks a century of seminal discoveries in immunology, infectious diseases (such as COVID-19, flu, HIV), neuroscience, heart disease, cancer, and more. Located in La Jolla, California, the institute houses six research departments, multiple Nobel laureates, a top-ranked graduate school and a leading postdoctoral training program.  We work hand-in-hand with researchers of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and Calibr to merge foundational studies in biology, chemistry and computer science with translational science to produce pioneering drugs and advances in digital and precision medicine. Together, we cultivate new scientific leaders and expand the frontiers of knowledge to deliver medical breakthroughs impacting human health around the globe. If you have a passion for making a difference, this could be your opportunity to join our transformative team.

Celebrating a Century: https://100.scripps.edu/

ABOUT THE DIGITAL TRIALS CENTER (DTC) AT SCRIPPS RESEARCH:

The Scripps Research Translational Institute (SRTI) offers a Postdoctoral position in the area of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Life Sciences. A Postdoc at SRTI is a way to pursue world-class multidisciplinary research with the greatest potential to transform the practice of healthcare and improve human health. You will work in the Digital Trials Center.

The Digital Trial Center (DTC) at Scripps Research leads groundbreaking studies that address the world’s most pressing health concerns. As pioneers of the “site-less” clinical trial, we leverage rapidly evolving digital health technologies to re-engineer the clinical trial experience around the participant, rather than the research site. In our prospective translational research, we use digital technologies, such as wearable sensors, remote biosample collection, sleep trackers and online surveys. With these technologies, we want to better understand health behaviors and transform the participant experience, returning individualized information through this technology. Together, we are transforming how and where clinical research is done.

DTC’s portfolio includes DETECT (our study on infectious diseases, with 40,000+ individuals); PowerMom (our maternal health platform, with more than 5000 pregnant participants, supporting individuals from pre-pregnancy to post-partum); PROGRESS (our multi-modal platform to predict glycemic response, with more than 1000 individuals including normoglycemic, prediabetic and type 2 diabetic individuals); cardiovascular care (working with 2 million 12-lead and single lead ECGs, towards prediction of cardiovascular outcomes) and All of Us Research Program (towards building a longitudinal cohort of 1 million individuals). The DTC team works closely with a network of partners, including CareEvolution, Fitbit, and iRhythm. The team’s work is featured in top academic journals, including Nature Medicine and Lancet Digital Health.

Building novel multi-modal AI algorithms is key to the success of DTC. With the advent of large language models, we have, more than ever, a unique opportunity to transform medicine. As a Postdoctoral Associate, you will be on the forefront of the AI initiatives at Scripps Research, processing large medical data and designing new algorithms towards improving clinical practice.

YOUR ROLE AS A POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATE IN AI:
As a Postdoctoral Associate, you will play a key role in processing terabytes of data from our partners, developing new AI algorithms and presenting the results in top academic journals. You will collaborate with our clinical investigators to collect data prospectively in our digital clinical studies, and with our data scientists to process and store the data before the analysis. You will collaborate with AI experts (including from UC San Diego Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute, San Diego State University and our national and international collaborators) and clinical professionals (from Scripps Health), leading the development of new solutions in Digital Medicine. Your responsibilities include:

• Leading interdisciplinary research projects using artificial intelligence with the goal of improving healthcare.
• Developing methods for supervised, unsupervised, semi-supervised learning from multi-modal datasets (text, image, video, time series and medical data), using machine/deep learning, signal processing, or computer vision techniques as needed. 
• Designing new solutions with large language models in collaboration with AI and clinical experts.
• Managing large datasets and applying AI algorithms in different computational environments (local and cloud servers).
• Authoring scientific papers, holding scientific presentations and contributing to writing of research project proposals.
• Taking responsibility for existing projects and proposing your own project ideas.

You will be part of a team of data scientists, AI researchers, clinical and behavioral experts, that collaborate on a wide range of innovative projects to improve healthcare.

This role is a unique opportunity to deepen your AI expertise and expand your research in life sciences. You will also have opportunities to build a strong research career by contributing to scientific publications and open-source projects, you will benefit from supervision of senior AI researchers and clinical scientists.

QUALIFICATIONS:

To be successful in the role, we're looking for someone with the following skills:

• PhD degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, or equivalent.
• 5+ years research experience in machine learning and artificial intelligence.
• Strong coding skills in Python, TensorFlow, PyTorch; working experience with AWS.
• Relevant publications in the field of AI.
• Experience in manipulating, processing and analyzing large heterogeneous datasets.
• Experience working with health data (prospective or retrospective data).
• Strong willingness to work collaboratively with experts in different disciplines, from AI scientists to clinical professionals.

COMPENSATION:

Postdoctoral Associates will be hired following the National Institute of Health and California’s exempt salary guidelines. The starting range is $68,640- $72,000. Consideration will be given to experience that exceeds the listed requirements.

COMPREHENSIVE BENEFITS INCLUDE: 

• Eligibility for retirement plans with employer contribution.
• Full suite of Health and Welfare plans including three medical plan options (including an HSA available option), dental, vision, life insurance, disability, EAP and more.
• Access to Flexible Spending Accounts (Medical/Dependent Care).
• Competitive vacation and sick leave policies.
• Free, on-site Counseling Center which provides confidential counseling services to benefits-eligible employees and their family members.
• Free, on-site parking. 
• Pet Insurance

The above statements describe the level of work performed and expected in general terms.  The statements are not intended to list all the responsibilities, duties and/or skills required of employees so classified, and the content herein is subject to change due to the business needs of Scripps Research, with or without notice.   Furthermore, nothing in this job description shall be interpreted to be in conflict with or to eliminate or modify in any way the employment-at-will status of Scripps Research staff. 

EEO Statement:The Scripps Research Institute is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We promote diversity of thought, culture and background in the fields of science. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply and will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or any other legally protected characteristic or status.