Job Description
About Us
We are a world-class visitor attraction and leading science research centre. We use the Museum's unique collections and our unrivalled expertise to tackle the biggest challenges facing the world today. We care for more than 80 million objects spanning billions of years and welcome more than five million visitors annually and 16 million visits to our website.
Today the Museum is more relevant and influential than ever. By attracting people from a range of backgrounds to work for us, we can continue to look at the world with fresh eyes and find new ways of doing things.
We employ 900 staff in a variety of roles, all united by our vision of a future where people and planet thrive. We need everyone to have the passion and drive to help us with our mission to create advocates for our planet and inspire millions to care about the natural world.
This is an exciting time to join the Museum as we have secured investment from the UK Government to build a new science and digitisation centre at Thames Valley Science Park, University of Reading. The purpose-built centre will house much of the Museum's collection and will include laboratories, digitisation suites, collaborative research spaces, conservation labs and workspaces
Diversity and inclusion matter to us.
Our vision is of a future where both people and the planet thrive. Diversity is one of our core values and we strive to build a workplace where everyone feels a sense of belonging. All new staff who join us learn about the importance of diversity and inclusion to the Museum and how to contribute to creating an inclusive environment.
We know we have more to do, but we are committed to ensuring that everyone who works at the Museum feels they can thrive and feel valued and respected.
About the role
This position will be embedded in a lab whose focus is broadly the human impact of global change (e.g., climate, land-use and demographic change).
This post-doctoral research assistant position will focus on a One Health, interdisciplinary research project set around anthropological, molecular and ecological data collection in The Gambia and Nigeria, with an international team of collaborators. We are interested in examining questions around how patterns of contact result in similarities/differences in the pathogens people and animals share. To achieve this, we are conducting in-depth participatory social science evaluations of people’s everyday habits and activities, measuring proximity using movement analysis and activity space mapping, and combining this with in-depth ecological surveys. We will then undertake extensive metagenomic work to understand the composition of shared viral communities, and follow this up with targeted, longitudinal serological data collection.
The post-holder will lead on the quantitative analysis of samples, using metagenomic machine learning pipelines to identify viruses and then build similarity networks from community samples. They will also act to support a project-based cohort of four PhD students, from across the four main disciplines: social science, ecology, public health and microbiology.
About you
The ideal candidate will be an experienced and independent researcher with a strong background in quantitative analysis and a keen interest in Onehealth research. Holding a PhD in Ecology, Epidemiology, Computer Science, Applied Statistics, or a related field, you bring a proven track record of working within academic environments and a familiarity with zoonotic or vector-borne diseases. Your expertise in molecular and computational biology, particularly in the analysis of metagenomic samples, and your proficiency in coding environments such as R or Python, will be essential in fulfilling the responsibilities of this role.
You possess the ability to manage and curate complex datasets, produce high-quality written reports, and independently structure your time to meet deadlines. Your strong communication and teamwork skills enable you to collaborate effectively with colleagues and contribute meaningfully to research discussions. Additionally, you are expected to support and guide a cohort of PhD students within the project, leveraging your experience to foster their academic growth.
This position requires a high level of professionalism, initiative, and self-motivation, alongside a commitment to maintaining the standards of quality, equality of opportunity, and health and safety as prescribed by the institution. The role may also necessitate short-term travel to remote locations for fieldwork. Your ability to adapt and contribute to interdisciplinary research efforts will be critical to the success of this project.
Thriving at the Museum: the way we work
We are proud to work at the Museum and have identified the qualities we all need to embody to reach our shared ambition. This sits alongside the Museum’s values and forms the framework for the way we work.
We are ambitious. To make a difference on a global scale we are big and bold in our thinking and set goals which may seem impossibly high. We act with integrity, but we are not rigid or inflexible. We are excellent at what we do and look for opportunities to make a difference for the Museum wherever we can.
We are curious. We never stop learning. We look outwards beyond the Museum and ask questions to advance our understanding. We seek out and actively listen to different perspectives. We take time to reflect, are thoughtful and open to new ideas.
We share the wonder. We are captivated by the natural world, proud of our treasures and trusted guardians of our collections. We are passionate about the Museum, enjoy telling its stories and sharing our knowledge and expertise to inspire others. We don’t take this for granted; we feel proud to work here.
We are pioneering. We are not afraid to try something new and use good judgment and evidence to take risks. We experiment, innovate, and embrace complex problems by adapting our approach. We do not dwell on setbacks or get preoccupied with problems. We find solutions.
We team up. We respect the expertise of others and recognise that we produce the strongest outcomes when we put the best ideas together. We trust each other, keep things simple and make it easy for others to do the right thing. We share information and skills so everyone is equipped and enabled to succeed. We never let bad moments grow into bad relationships. We inspire and empower each other to give our best.
We act with pace. We focus our efforts where we know we can make the biggest impact. We take tough decisions and once a plan is set, we all get behind it to make it happen. We take responsibility and don’t wait to be told what to do. We are racing against time in this planetary emergency, so we work with a sense of urgency.
General Information
All positions at the Natural History Museum are conditional subject to receipt of:
• Proof that you are legally entitled to work in the UK
• A Basic Disclosure Check from the Disclosures and Barring Service (DBS)
• Satisfactory references covering the last 3 years of your employment or education
• Health clearance
The Museum supports flexible working.
How to apply
If this sounds like you, please apply below by clicking on Apply for job.
Closing date: 23:59 on 08 September 2024
Interviews expected: w/c 23 September 2024
Please note that this role does not qualify for Museum sponsorship so the successful postholder will need to have a valid right to work in the UK at the point of offer.