The Alan Turing Institute is the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. The Institute is named in honour of the scientist Alan Turing and its mission is to make great leaps in data science and artificial intelligence research in order to change the world for the better.

THE MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL

The MRC Clinical Trials Unit (MRC CTU) at UCL is a centre of excellence for clinical trials, meta-analyses and epidemiological studies. It is committed to strengthening and expanding the evidence base for healthcare nationally and internationally. It also develops methodology to improve the design, conduct and analysis of clinical studies, and hosts one of the MRC’s eight regional Hubs for Trials Methodology Research. The MRC CTU currently employs around 230 staff.

The MRC CTU is part of The Institute of Clinical Trials and Methodology, within the Faculty of Population Health Sciences (FPHS). The Faculty brings together expertise in Child Health, Women's and Reproductive Health, Population Health, Global Health, Cardiovascular Science, Clinical Trials and Health Informatics, in a unique grouping that spans the life-course.

Further details can be found here: http://www.ctu.mrc.ac.uk/

We seek an outstanding postdoctoral research associate to join an exciting new collaboration between the Alan Turing Institute and the MRC Clinical Trials Unit (MRC CTU) at UCL, exploring the potential impact of statistical machine learning on the design, conduct and analysis of randomised clinical trials.

The researcher will explore novel statistical machine learning methods for the identification of treatment effect heterogeneity in RCTs, and predictive models of personalised treatment effects. Particular attention will be paid to issues around interpretability, reproducible research, validation of AI methods and the assessment of false discovery rates.

Successful postdoctoral candidates should have a strong quantitative background with statistical machine learning experience and be eager to do research at the interface of AI and clinical trials.

We welcome applications from those with a medical statistics/ biostatistics background who are interested in developing machine learning methods and who can demonstrate experience in writing code, as well as those with a computational statistics background with an interest in medical applications.

Organisational position

The postholder will work closely with senior collaborators at the Alan Turing Institute and the MRC CTU. Depending on the background of the successful candidate, there will be opportunities for undertaking appropriate training in Clinical Trials design, conduct and analyses, and/or statistical machine learning,

Therefore, work will be undertaken either at the Alan Turing Institute at the British Library, London, or at the MRC CTU, at 90 High Holborn, London but with regular attendance at both sites.

Duties and responsibilities

You will be expected to work closely with the senior principal investigators:

• To work collaboratively with researchers, senior investigators from across the Turing and MRC CTU as well as external partners on the project.
• To explore the potential of new statistical (machine learning) methods to improve the learning opportunities from RCTs.
• To undertake analyses using machine learning methods on existing trials data within the MRC CTU.
• To attend and present research findings and papers at academic and professional conferences, and to contribute to the external visibility of both institutes.
• To participate in the organisation of research workshops and other events.
• To be given the personal freedom to develop and pursue innovative research ideas.

Candidates must be able to demonstrate, through examples, the capabilities below:

Essential

• A PhD degree or equivalent professional experience in a field with significant element of computational statistics or statistical machine learning.
• Experience in the development and/or application of statistical machine learning methods.
• Experience in managing, structuring, and analysing research data.
• Fluency in one or more modern statistical programming languages used in research in data science and artificial intelligence, such as R or Python.
• An understanding of the importance of good practice for producing reliable software and reproducible research (e.g. version control, literate analysis tools such as Jupyter and Rmarkdown)
• Demonstrated enthusiasm and ability to rapidly assimilate new computational and statistical ideas and techniques on the job and apply them successfully.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including experience in the visual representation of quantitative data, the authoring of research papers or technical reports, and giving presentations or classes on technical subjects.
• Ability to lead one’s own work independently, including planning and execution, and to collaborate productively as part of a team.

Desirable

• To be given the personal freedom to develop and pursue innovative research ideas.
• Interest in methodological advances in clinical trials
• Computational statistics, particularly Bayesian modelling and Bayesian statistics
• Experience using graphical methods and data visualisation
• Familiarity with common applied statistical software used in clinical trials, e.g. Stata, SAS or R
• Understanding of clinical trials, particularly the statistical methods used to analyse data from clinical trials.

Terms and conditions

This full-time post is offered on a fixed term contract until 2022, with possibility for extension (funding permitting).starting as soon as possible. Happy to Talk Flexible Working

The salary range offered for this role is £35,000 – £41,000. A competitive benefits package is also available (https://www.turing.ac.uk/work-turing/why-work-turing/employee-benefits).

Application procedure

If you are interested in this opportunity, please click the apply button below. You will need to register on the applicant’s portal and complete the application form including your CV, covering letter and contact details for your referees.

Along with a CV and covering letter, please submit a research output to support your application, for us to read before the interview. This might be a link to a selected research or technical paper, a technical blog post or a chapter of a thesis or dissertation, but we particularly encourage applicants to submit a link to a public version control tool such as GitHub containing an example analysis script or research software library you have made a significant contribution to.

If you have questions or would like to discuss the role further with a member of the Institute’s HR Team, please contact them on 0203 862 3394 or 020 3862 3357, or email [email protected]. If you would like to submit your application in a different format, please email [email protected].

Applicants who would like to receive this advert in an alternative format or who are unable to apply online should, please email [email protected].

Secondments from University partners are welcome.

Closing date for applications: 22 December 2019

Interviews will take place mid-to-late-January 2020

Equality, diversity and inclusion

The Alan Turing Institute is committed to creating an environment where diversity is valued and everyone is treated fairly. In accordance with the Equality Act, we welcome applications from anyone who meets the specific criteria of the post regardless of age, disability, ethnicity, gender reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy, religion or belief or sexual orientation. Reasonable adjustments are available to support candidates through the application and interview process.

Please note all offers of employment are subject to continuous eligibility to work in the UK and satisfactory pre-employment security screening which includes a DBS Check.