Research Specialist II - Princeton University

The Krienen lab (krienenlab.org) at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute is looking for a skilled bioinformatician to contribute to single cell genomics-based projects. The successful candidate will join a multidisciplinary group and support a wide variety of projects conducting cutting-edge research on the molecular, cellular, and neurobiological mechanisms of brain development, evolution, and disorders.

In this position, you will be an integral member of projects focused on single cell genomics. Your role will be to provide computational expertise in algorithm development, selection, and optimization to create efficient and scalable research code.

If you have a strong background in scientific programming, academic research, and an interest in neuroscience and genomics, you have the right skill set to make an immediate impact on multiple high-profile research projects.

This is a one-year position with the possibility of renewal contingent upon funding availability and performance.

• Develop, refine, optimize and apply analysis methods and software to a variety of datasets, including single-cell RNA-seq, ATAC-seq, and multiome data
• Expand the capacity of software pipelines to process expanding datasets
• Produce open-source methods that can be utilized by other researchers; carefully document and annotate source code for utilization by the scientific community
• Develop software allowing the project team, and the broader scientific community, to access, analyze and interact with data generated by projects

• Work with scientists, data managers and other software engineers toward the creation of optimal analysis workflows for high-data-volume experiments. Participate in project-planning and project-analysis meetings as well as software-planning meetings, communicating the needs and tradeoffs.

Essential Qualifications:

● Bachelor's degree in neuroscience, computational biology, genomics or a related field is required.
● Experience working with genomic data
● Strong programming skills, particularly in Python or R
● Demonstrated successes working in a collaborative software development environment as well as working independently
● Ability to learn new tools and technologies
● Ability to communicate effectively with a diverse group of researchers with varied levels of technical proficiency
• Experience working with cluster computing (GridEngine, SLURM, LSF)

Preferred Qualifications:

● A graduate degree neuroscience, computational biology, genomics or in a related field, and/or relevant post-Bachelor’s degree research experience
● Genomic analysis and computation, particularly with single cell genomics workflows
● Experience with Shiny R or UI for data visualization
● Experience with cloud computing
● Academic research experience

This position is subject to the University's background check policy.

Princeton University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS