Johns Hopkins Center for Outbreak Response Innovation Assistant Scientist Position

The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (CHS) at the Bloomberg School of Public Health works to protect people's health from epidemics and disasters and ensure that communities are resilient to major challenges. We examine how scientific and technological innovations can strengthen health security. We study the policies, organizations, systems, and tools to prevent and respond to outbreaks and public health crises. We advance policies and practice to address a range of challenges, including the global rise in emerging infectious diseases, a continued risk of pandemic flu, major natural disasters, our dependence on vulnerable infrastructure, and the potential for biological, chemical, or nuclear accidents or deliberate threats.

CHS was recently awarded a 5-year Cooperative Agreement from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics to support a new epidemic preparedness project--Toward Epidemic Preparedness: Enhancing Public Health Infrastructure and Incorporating Data-Driven Tools. This project initiates the Center for Outbreak Response Innovation (CORI) within the Johns Hopkins University. CORI will establish partnerships with traditional and nontraditional public health stakeholders across the country to integrate infectious disease modeling and analytics tools into decision making at many levels and train public health practitioners to use modeling and analytics tools for the full spectrum of epidemic responses. Partners will include state and local public health departments, elected leaders, public health decision-makers, and meteorologists. CORI is looking to hire up to two Assistant Scientists to support this new project.

The Assistant Scientist for this project will work on the following tasks:

• Interfacing with public health partners at federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial levels; the private sector; political leaders; and other academic organizations.

• Drafting public health emergency operations plans, standard operating procedures, data sharing agreements, and other plans and policies that can be used by public health leadership and other decision-makers during a large-scale public health emergency.

• Developing risk assessment tools that can provide public health decision-makers with evidence-based guidelines in response to emerging public health events.

• Developing communication materials for epidemic modeling and analytics to improve public communication and individual decision-making during seasonal respiratory virus activity and during public health emergencies.

• Developing strategies, protocols, and tools to integrate epidemic modeling and analytics capabilities and outputs into emergency response decision-making processes for private sector partners.

• Developing and disseminating infectious disease modeling and outbreak analytics educational trainings and online courseware.

• Developing and executing epidemic modeling and analytics tabletop exercises and simulations with CORI partners.

The Assistant Scientist will report to the CORI deputy director, who will coordinate their work among the other project leaders, co-investigators, chief of staff, program manager, research associates, and communications, financial, and administrative staff. The Assistant Scientist may also respond to requests from the CORI director, co-investigators, chief of staff, and program manager.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

At the direction of the CORI deputy director:

• Conduct research and analysis on project-related topics including, but not limited to, infectious disease modeling and outbreak analytics, infectious disease epidemiology, public health risk assessment, public communication, decision-making, and data sharing

• Adapt complex statistical modeling and disease and epidemic surveillance concepts into documents, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and publicly available information that can be understood by those who do not have a statistical modeling background

• Research and develop epidemic modeling and analytics communication material tailored for a broad audience of stakeholders, including state and local public health agency staff, political leaders, private sector business, and the public

• Assist in developing and executing tabletop exercises and simulations

• Support the development and implementation of educational trainings and digital courses aimed at health professionals and infectious disease modelers

• Serve as an integral member of project teams, including providing technical expertise, attending in-person and remote project meetings

• Provide project management support (e.g., scheduling meetings, organizing events, coordination of Research Associates, Senior Research Associates, and students)

• Prepare reports and publishable manuscripts, for both internal and public use

• Represent CORI in the health security, national security, public health, scientific, medical, governance, and policy communities

Salary:

Salary and academic rank are commensurate with experience and contingent upon approval through the Bloomberg School of Public Health faculty appointment process. The established range for this position is between $114,400 and $125,000. The position reflected in the above is envisioned to be an Assistant Scientist position. However, the most appropriate non-tenure track faculty appointment type will be requested for approval based on each candidate's background.

The position offers either a full-time remote or a hybrid teleworking/in-office option. The CORI office will be operated out of the new CHS offices, conveniently located at the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, MD.

Required Qualifications:

• Doctoral-level degree in epidemiology, infectious disease modeling, public health, biostatistics, statistics, data science, bioinformatics, or a closely related discipline (e.g., statistics, data science)

• Experience in participating in and managing multidisciplinary research teams in at least one of the above fields

• Experience with epidemiological investigations or statistical modeling for outbreak surveillance and the creation of related dashboards and other communication tools

• Research, writing, or policy analysis experience in a scientific, public health, medical, technological, governmental, or commercial context

• Knowledge of the operational life cycle of project management, including project planning and development, funding and staffing, day-to-day management, and product delivery

• Excellent organizational and time management skills, including the ability to create realistic project schedules, and meet deadlines, while prioritizing and managing multiple tasks

• Excellent written communication skills, including writing and editing skills that can be applied to the conceptualization, development, design, writing, and editing of materials created for multiple purposes and audiences

• Excellent data visualization skills

• Able to interpret and communicate science-based public health evidence to support implementation into effective practice

• Able to support and foster teamwork and collaboration among all staff

• Able to work independently and collaboratively with other project team members

• Excellent interpersonal and verbal communication skills

• Keen observation, assessment, and evaluation skills

• Able to identify and solve problems and make sound decisions

• Experience with research-related and/or statistical software (e.g., R, Python)

• Ability to travel up to 10% of the time to domestic locations

Preferred Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (need not have all to apply):

• Experience with epidemiological investigations or statistical modeling for outbreak surveillance and the creation of related dashboards and other communication tools

• Public health communication experience including demonstrated knowledge of plain language communication practices, CDC health literacy guidelines and best practices communicating with stakeholders with varying degrees and understanding of public health concepts and practices

• Knowledge of or experience responding to disaster / emergency events and preparing documents and plans associated with response operations to such event

• Experience leading, overseeing, or directing operational or research activities of other project team members

• Experience with Notion and Airtable program management software

Submit CV, cover letter, professional references (3), writing sample and recent publication.

Job Type: Full Time Johns Hopkins University is committed to active recruitment of a diverse faculty and student body. The University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer of women, minorities, protected veterans and individuals with disabilities and encourages applications from these and other protected group members. Consistent with the University’s goals of achieving excellence in all areas, we will assess the comprehensive qualifications of each applicant.