Postdoctoral Research Opportunity – Single Cell and Spatial Genomics of Lung Diseases
The Misharin Laboratory in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine is seeking a computational postdoctoral fellow to study human lung diseases, including pulmonary fibrosis, severe pneumonia, and complications of lung transplantation, in well-phenotyped human cohorts using single-cell genomics, spatial transcriptomics, digital pathology, and longitudinal clinical data.
We are looking for someone with substantial experience in single-cell genomics and modeling approaches; not just familiarity with standard clustering and cell-type identification workflows. The successful candidate should understand how single-cell data are generated, sources of technical and biological variation, and how analytical choices can affect conclusions. Experience with large datasets, probabilistic modeling, representation learning, reference mapping, transfer learning, or patient-level modeling is particularly valuable.
The fellow will lead a primary research project while contributing to selected collaborative projects across the laboratory. The exact project will be shaped around the fellow’s expertise and career goals.
Qualifications
Applicants must have, or expect to receive before starting, a PhD or equivalent doctoral degree in computational biology, bioinformatics, statistics, computer science, genomics, or a related field.
Required qualifications include:
- An understanding of statistical modeling, experimental design, biological replication, batch effects, confounding, and patient-level inference
- Substantial hands-on experience analyzing scRNA-seq or closely related single-cell genomic data
- Strong programming skills in Python, R, or both
- High-performance computing, version control, and reproducible workflows
- Experience working with large, complex biological datasets
- Evidence of independent contributions to research projects and manuscripts
- Ability to communicate clearly and work closely with experimental scientists, clinicians, and other computational researchers
Experience in one or more of the following areas is strongly preferred:
- scVI-tools or related probabilistic and deep generative models
- Representation learning, transfer learning, domain adaptation, or reference mapping
- Patient- or sample-level modeling of single-cell data
- Spatial transcriptomics and related statistical approaches; integration of digital pathology and -omics
- Longitudinal or repeated-measures analysis
Prior experience in lung biology or pulmonary medicine is not required.
Research Environment and Career Development
The fellow will join a collaborative translational research environment with access to large human datasets linked to clinical data. The fellow is expected to work closely with physicians, experimental biologists, and other computational scientists. The position is based at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in downtown Chicago.
We recognize that not every strong PhD graduate has already decided between an academic, industry, or team-scientist career path. We will help the fellow develop technical depth, scientific ownership, a strong publication record, mentoring experience, and a deliberate career plan.
Application Instructions
Please submit:
- A cover letter describing your motivation for applying for this position and summarizing your qualifications.
- A curriculum vitae, including publications and preprints, contact information for three references, and links to representative code repositories or websites.