Postdoctoral Research Fellow

About the role

The Vazquez-Garcia Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the Broad Institute, seeks a postdoctoral candidate to join their interdisciplinary team. The lab focuses on understanding the fundamental principles of somatic evolution and immune surveillance in cancer, using data-driven approaches and large clinical datasets.

Responsibilities

• Design, train, and evaluate cutting-edge AI and statistical models using large patient datasets.
• Build robust pipelines for large-scale data processing and benchmarking across modalities.
• Collaborate closely with cancer biologists, clinicians, and other computational researchers to generate testable hypotheses and interpret findings.
• Perform exploratory research in a fast-paced setting with the potential for real impact on patients.
• Contribute to the development of high-quality, reusable, open-source software.
• Publish research in top-tier journals and present at major conferences.
• Help foster a collaborative lab environment by advising and supporting junior team members.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. (or near completion) in a relevant field such as Computational Biology, Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related quantitative discipline.
• Demonstrated proficiency in Python, R and/or other scientific computing languages.
• Proven track record of productivity through peer-reviewed publications.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a collaborative team.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.

Preferred Experience

• Proven experience working with high-dimensional, multi-modal omics data and clinical data.
• Strong background in advanced statistical modeling and/or modern machine learning approaches (e.g. transformers, foundation models, generative modeling, interpretable AI).
• Knowledge of cancer biology, immunology, or molecular biology.
• Familiarity with cloud computing and workflow management (e.g., Nextflow, Snakemake).
• Experience with version control and software engineering practices.
• Interest in contributing to open-source bioinformatics software.