Postdoctoral Research Scientist

Our client is a leading African-based, Africanled international research institution headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya with a Regional Office in Dakar, Senegal. They conducts policy-relevant research on population, health, education, urbanization and related development issues in sub-Saharan Africa.

Our client seeks to recruit a highly motivated and talented postdoctoral research scientist to work within the West Africa Regional Office in Dakar. The candidate will join a growing team that develops local, national and international spatiotemporal models for environmental determinants of health, such as air pollution, climate related covariates, and built environment, that can be used for studies of their health effects. This position fits a candidate with strong quantitative, environmental science, and epidemiology background seeking experience in the application of advanced methods, such as machine learning/AI and novel statistical methods in exposure science research.

Duties and Responsibilities may include:

• Conduct research on the intersection between climate change and health, which may include desk-based and community-based research
• Lead or contribute to study conceptualization and design, project management and coordination including development of research tools for use in data collection, field workers recruitment coordination, training and supervision of field workers, and data management, data analysis, report writing.
• Conduct data collections, cleaning and processing and take responsibility for data quality, programming and carry out statistical analyses with quantitative statistical packages (e.g. STATA or R)
• Apply novel statistical approaches
• Collaborate with scientists with different background
• Support ethical approval process from national ethics committees for research projects.
• Contribute to proposal development
• Write scientific manuscripts
• Mobilize and inform the community about the research project.
• Assist in the translation of project documents from English to French and vice versa.
• Prepare periodic activities and project reports.
• Participate in the dissemination of research findings and dialogue on action items with appropriate audiences.
• Prepare policy briefs and fact sheets based on project results.
• Perform other duties as assigned by the supervisor.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience

• PhD in Epidemiology, Population Health or Public Health, Environmental Health, Climate Change and Health or related fields
• At least 2 years of professional experience following completion of PhD degree, preferably in a research setting
• Good communication and writing skills
• Strong quantitative skills (managing, analyzing and interpreting data), with extensive expertise in medical statistics, biostatistics, computer science, modelling and projections, GIS and geospatial analysis
• Good analytical and computational skills
• Ability to work on concurrent projects, prioritize, balance multiple tasks
• Ability to work independently as well as part of a team with people from diverse cultures
• Ability to manage field workers, research teams and partnerships
• Excellent interpersonal and strong organizational and time management skills with ability to meet tight deadlines
• Strong work ethic
• Proficiency in oral and written communication in English and French
• Work experience in Francophone West Africa

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with work on climate change and health intersection including linking heat impact on health
• Experience with geospatial analysis, GIS, and data science
• Experience with advanced statistical methods used in environmental health
• Experience with high performance computing cluster environments
• Ability to work under pressure
• Experience in analyzing spatial data
• Disposition to work in multicultural and multidisciplinary teams

Other benefits

• Paid vacations: 2 days of paid vacations per month worked ;
• Health coverage provided by the Company for the employee and his/her dependents according to Company policy.
• Excellent opportunities for career advancement, including support for grant applications, funding for activities that promote career independence and support for workshops at both national and international conferences.