Research Assistant

About the Role
The post-holder will contribute to two linked research programmes: (i) harmonisation of social, clinical, demographic and physical health indicators across Mental Health Platform cohorts and related UK mental health datasets; and (ii) development, testing and documentation of social exposome variables and composite scores to investigate health inequalities in people with severe mental illness.

The role will involve quantitative analyses examining relationships between social determinants, social exposome domains, inflammation-related mechanisms, and physical and mental health outcomes in severe mental illness. The post-holder will extract, clean, harmonise and quality control data from resources such as Mental Health Platform cohorts, DATAMIND-hosted datasets and UK Biobank, generating derived variables suitable for cross-cohort analysis.

They will support the mapping of available measures across cohorts, develop harmonised variable definitions, construct and test composite social exposome scores, and prepare reproducible documentation for future platform-wide use.

About You
The successful candidate will have a relevant undergraduate degree and ideally a postgraduate MSc degree in Genomic Medicine, data science, epidemiology, psychology, biomedical sciences, biotechnology, genetics, statistics, bioinformatics, genetic epidemiology, or a related discipline, or equivalent experience.

We welcome applicants from either biomedical or quantitative backgrounds. Candidates may have training in biomedical sciences, psychology, genetics or genomic medicine and wish to develop computational and epidemiological skills; or have training in mathematics, statistics, computing, bioinformatics or data science and wish to apply these skills to mental health, social determinants of health and health inequalities.

Key attributes include good computational skills, such as experience with statistical analysis, R, RStudio, quantitative data analysis or reproducible research pipelines; strong communication and interpersonal skills; good organisation; self-motivation; and the ability to work effectively in a multidisciplinary research environment. Training in psychoneuroimmunology and social exposome methods will be provided.

About the School/Department/Institute/Project
We are seeking an RA who wishes to develop quantitative data analysis skills within a team focused on biological embedding of psychosocial stress and health inequalities in severe mental illness. The post is jointly and independently funded by an existing Cross Hub Collaboration and Innovation Award from the Mental Health Platform, UKRI, and will be based at QMUL.

About Queen Mary
At Queen Mary University of London, we believe that a diversity of ideas helps us achieve the previously unthinkable.

Throughout our history, we’ve fostered social justice and improved lives through academic excellence. And we continue to live and breathe this spirit today, not because it’s simply ‘the right thing to do’ but for what it helps us achieve and the intellectual brilliance it delivers.

We continue to embrace diversity of thought and opinion in everything we do, in the belief that when views collide, disciplines interact, and perspectives intersect, truly original thought takes form.

Benefits
We offer competitive salaries, access to a generous pension scheme, 30 days’ leave per annum (pro-rata for part-time/fixed-term), a season ticket loan scheme and access to a comprehensive range of personal and professional development opportunities. In addition, we offer a range of work life balance and family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, and campus facilities.

Queen Mary’s commitment to our diverse and inclusive community is embedded in our appointments processes. Reasonable adjustments will be made at each stage of the recruitment process for any candidate with a disability. We are open to considering applications from candidates wishing to work flexibly.

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