Scientific Programmer

Job Summary:

A biologist with bioinformatics / computer programming experience or a computer scientist with bioinformatics / biology experience, a penchant for details, and a love of excel or other powerful computational tools for the manipulation of data, to join a large team working on data management and validation for an NIH-funded malaria systems biology contract. The successful candidate will work locally with a team of biologists, computer scientists, and programmers to review, validate, and disseminate clinical and various ‘omics’ datasets into an UNIX-based iRODS data repository, Oracle database, and appropriate public data repositories. Under the guidance of the local team, they will interface collaboratively with a team of approximately 30 biologists, parasitologists, clinicians, and mathematical modelers to keep their data organized and searchable and provide quality control to project results. Participation in the preparation of scientific papers and technical documentation is encouraged. The person in this position will be responsible for using and contributing to Standard Operating Procedures and programming scripts for the validation of project data to ensure high-quality deliverables. Assistance with the preparation of depositions of data and associated metadata into public repositories (NCBI, Metabolomics Workbench, PRIDE, PlasmoDB, etc) will be required. This position is not compatible with also being in school full-time. This is a full-time position that is short in duration. The position ends September 29, 2017.

Education, Experience, Licensure, Certification required:

A bachelor’s degree with at least 2 years of advance upper level biology with molecular biology experience. An active interest in and some demonstrated experience with bioinformatics and large datasets is required.

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities and/or Competencies required to successfully perform work:

Extreme attention to detail and experience working with Microsoft Office, especially Excel, are required. Experience with clinical or omics data is highly desirable and a strong plus. Experience with and working knowledge of UNIX, Perl, Python, SQL and relational databases are all desirable.

Preferred Qualifications: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in computer science, bioinformatics, biology or related field. Experience with management of clinical and/or omics datasets, even on a small scale.

Duties and Responsibilities:

50% – Use contribute to Standard Operating Procedures and related algorithms/scripts to transfer, process, and validate data, metadata, and other experimental results, including troubleshooting incorrect/incomplete data sets, for loading into an Oracle database and iRODS file repository.

25% – Assist with the preparation of data sets for deposition to public repositories.

10% – Contribute to the collection of new and varied data types, and the design of data management and validation plans.

10% – Attend meetings and conference calls to participate in data management decisions.

5% – Additional duties as assigned

Physical Demands: sitting at desk most of the workday

Full-Time or Part-Time: Full-time

Regular (Benefits Eligible) or Temporary: Regular

Proposed Starting Date: Immediate

Location of Vacancy: Athens, GA

Required Applicant Documents: CV

Optional Applicant Documents: Cover Letter

***Special Instructions to Applicants: Funding for this position is guaranteed until 9/29/2017. After this date, continuation is dependent upon the award of new funding. A proposal has been submitted but the results will not be known until September. If awarded, funding will not begin until January, thus there would be a gap in employment if the successful applicant and the project were interested in continuing. ***

Job Type: Full-time

Required education:

• Bachelor’s

Required experience:

• advanced upper level biology with molecular biology: 2 years