Senior Data Scientist

Do you want to help us improve human health and understand life on Earth? Make your mark by shaping the future to enable or deliver life-changing science to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges.
Senior Research Data Scientist - 3 year fixed-term contract
We seek two Senior Research Data Scientists with machine learning knowledge to participate in a project supervised by Dr. Mo Lotfollahi (https://lotfollahi.com/) and Dr. Omer Bayraktar (https://www.sanger.ac.uk/perso...) in close collaboration with the Informatics and Digital Solutions group. This collaborative project aims to leverage investments in observing biological systems at cellular resolution, such as the Human Cell Atlas (HCA) data, to develop state-of-the-art generative machine learning (ML) models, including foundational models capable of simulating cellular behaviors in tissue by leveraging multimodal spatial readouts, including transcriptomics and imaging. You will work within an interdisciplinary team of life scientists and computer/ML scientists, united by the goal of enhancing our understanding of life's rules and using this knowledge to improve health for all. This role is within the AI/ML Faculty group led by Dr. Mo Lotfollahi and Dr. Omer Bayraktar, who specialize in spatial genomics technologies. The successful candidate will be responsible for delivering their portfolio of scientific research projects as part of the broader team strategy.
About The Role
You will be expected to work on and lead specific computational biology/machine-learning projects at the intersection of single-cell biology, spatial ‘omics and machine learning. Your work will contribute to the overall aims of this collaboration which are to address two fundamental yet significant questions: “Can we assemble large-scale spatial references by integrating multi-modal data across different tissue sections and patient by building a foundation model?” and, “Can we predict molecular information (e.g., gene expression) at a cellular resolution from within a tissue given the histology image?". To achieve this, you will work with open-source software, proposing, developing, and maintaining new solutions to analyse and interpret large-scale single-cell datasets.
Our teams are well-positioned to tackle this problem with experience in both generating and analysis datasets, including millions of cells across multiple tissues and conditions (e.g., disease, healthy), a detailed understanding in the training of large-scale ML models and a track record of undertaking large data-science projects.
You Will Be Responsible For

• Independently manage and lead machine learning research projects and write outcomes in a scientific publication for submission to journals or machine learning conferences (ICLR, ICML, CVPR, etc).
• Collaborate with team members, propose, develop, and evaluate new machine learning models that enable understanding single-cell data and its application in drug discovery.
• Work with Ph.D. students and postdocs in collaborating teams on developing solutions for interdisciplinary scientific problems in biology, providing supervision and training to junior members of the team.
• Contribute to writing scientific papers on biotechnology and biology.
• Distill your developed solutions into open-source and easy-to-install packages with documentation that facilitates the usage of your solution for downstream users, including biologists and bioinformaticians.
• Present your research and analysis pipelines to internal and external audiences.
  

About You
You will be supported in your personal and professional development and have the opportunity to lead peer-reviewed publications around using genetics and genomics approaches to guide drug discovery and present them at national and international conferences.
To be successful in the Data Scientist role, you will have the following technical skills:
Essential Skills
To be successful in the Senior Data Scientist role, you will have the following:

• Ph.D. or MS.c with equivalent research experience in a relevant quantitative discipline (e.g., Computer Science, Computational Biology, Genetics, Bioinformatics, Physics, Engineering, or Applied Statistics/Mathematics)
• Proven experience using advanced statistical techniques, machine learning, and modern deep learning techniques.
• Previous ML work experience in scientific/academic environment (RA/Internships are considered as work experience)
• Strong knowledge of Python, including core data science libraries such as Scikit-Learn, SciPy, TensorFlow, and PyTorch.
• Knowledge of software development good practices and collaboration tools, including git-based version control, python package management, and code reviews.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain complex machine learning algorithms and statistical methods to non-technical stakeholders.
• Evidence of related work experience as a researcher in the area of Machine learning
• Strong publication record, first author position ideal
  

In addition to the above technical skills, you will also have the following:

• Ability to quickly understand scientific, technical, and process challenges and breakdown complex problems into actionable steps
• Ability to work in a frequently changing environment with the capability to interpret management information to amend plans
• Ability to prioritize, manage workload, and deliver agreed activities consistently on time
• Demonstrate good networking, influencing and relationship building skills
• Strategic thinking is the ability to see the ‘bigger picture'
• Ability to build collaborative working relationships with internal and external stakeholders at all levels
• Demonstrates inclusivity and respect for all