Research Assistant: Data Science in Psychiatry/Genomics

The University of Oxford is a stimulating work environment, which enjoys an international reputation as a world-class centre of excellence. Our research plays a key role in tackling many global challenges, from reducing our carbon emissions to developing vaccines during a pandemic.

The Department of Psychiatry is based on the Warneford Hospital site in Oxford – a friendly, welcoming place of work with an international reputation for excellence. The Department has a substantial research programme, with major funding from Medical Research Council (MRC), Wellcome Trust and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and provides highly rated medical training in psychiatry.  The Head of Department is Professor Belinda Lennox.

We are recruiting a research assistant to pursue biomarker leads with potential clinical impact in psychiatry.

What We Offer

As an employer, we genuinely care about our employees’ wellbeing and this is reflected in the range of benefits that we offer including:

• An excellent contributory pension scheme
• 38 days annual leave
• A comprehensive range of childcare services
• Family leave schemes
• Cycle loan scheme
• Discounted bus travel and Season Ticket travel loans
• Membership to a variety of social and sports clubs

This post is only available as full-time.  However, we can discuss flexible working hours (e.g. starting and finishing earlier in the day) to accommodate your needs. Working remotely is possible for up to 1 day/week.

About the Role

The post is funded for two years and is based in the Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital / Big Data Institute, Old Road Campus.

The successful applicant will perform careful and critical quality control/exploratory data analysis of biobank-scale datasets to understand dataset-specific quirks, biases and confounders.  You will write computer code for analysis of large datasets, that can be integrated into pipelines and used by others to reproduce results.  You will also be required to perform analyses with clinical/phenotypic data and polygenic scores and other multi-omics datasets using computer code.

Working in a dynamic and multidisciplinary team including data analysts with expertise in multi-omics and biobank analysis, clinician-researchers in psychiatry, and methods developers, you will gain valuable exposure to translational research.  This role offers significant opportunities for growth and development as an academic.

About You

You will have a degree in a relevant subject (including, but not limited to, data science, statistics, computer science, engineering, mathematics, etc.) OR strong background in the above, evidenced by previous projects or portfolio. A demonstrable interest in psychiatry and mental health is essential.  You will be able to demonstrate excellent coding skills in R and/or Python and the ability to write code in R and/or Python in such a way that data analysis can be streamlined. Experience of contributing to research publications and experience with version control and open-source code would be desirable.

Diversity

Committed to equality and valuing diversity

Our active Psychiatry People and Culture teams  and initiatives including our values and behaviours framework,  work to make the Department of Psychiatry as supportive, welcoming and inclusive as possible.

Application Process

You will be required to upload a covering letter/supporting statement, CV and the details of two referees as part of your online application. Please see the University pages on the application process at https://www.jobs.ox.ac.uk/application-process

The closing date for applications is 12:00 midday on 11 July 2025.

Interviews are scheduled to take place on 23 July and will be online.

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