Research Assistant in Early Detection of Neurodegenerative Diseases

About us

UCL’s Department of Computer Science (CS) is a top-ranked Computer Science Department in the UK. In the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF) evaluation, UCL Computer Science was ranked second in the UK for research power and first in England.

The UCL Progression Of Neurodegenerative Disease (POND) group is a world-leading research laboratory in computational data-driven disease progression modelling and AI, that sits within the UCL Hawkes Institute — a leading hub of medical image computing and interventional science involving well over 100 scientists and academics.

About the role

The Research Assistant will join the UCL POND group (15–20 researchers), collaborating directly with Data Stewards from UCL’s Centre for Advanced Research Computing (ARC) and members of the Early Detection of Neurodegenerative (EDoN) diseases initiative — UCL Division of Psychiatry, Boston University (USA), Edith Cowan University (Australia), the University of Sydney (Australia), and the University of Sussex (UK).

Duties and responsibilities:

• Preprocess raw digital and clinical data generated from four cohorts of research volunteers related to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s (in collaboration with Data Stewards from UCL ARC).
• Convert pre-processed data into features suitable for computational statistics and machine learning analyses of neurodegenerative disease progression.

The salary range for this post is £39,148 - £39,807

This role is an open-ended contract with a funding end date of 31st January 2027 in the first instance.

About you

You must have experience and demonstrable aptitude in a related field, e.g., neuroscience, neurology, data processing/analysis.

Key skills: proficiency and experience in coding relevant to data wrangling/processing (e.g., python, R, MATLAB); experience with command-line (Unix/linux) tools for remote access (ssh, scp, rsync); strong desire and willingness to learn.

Desirable skills: scientific computing skills including cluster computing; domain knowledge/familiarity (Alzheimer’s and related diseases); strong communication skills; team player; inquisitive; interested in data wrangling/processing and data science.

What we offer

As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents, we also offer great benefits. Please visit https://www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/rewards-and-benefits to find out more.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

As London’s Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world’s talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong.

We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL’s workforce.

These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women.

Our department holds an Athena SWAN Gold award, in recognition of our long-term commitment and 'beacon' status in advancing gender equality.

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