SENIOR BIOINFORMATICS SPECALIST - Tufts Technology Services


Tufts Technology Services (TTS) is a university-wide service organization dedicated to the strategic planning, implementation, and support of technology products and services that anticipate and meet the academic, research, and business needs of the Tufts community. TTS offers technical leadership and services to our customers with a focus on providing innovative solutions, delivering exceptional customer service, and creating a reliable infrastructure that demonstrates value to the students, faculty, staff, and alumni of Tufts University. TTS works in partnership with schools, business units, and other academic support organizations to provide campus-wide IT services in the areas of academic and research technology, enterprise application systems and services, networking and telecommunications, information security, data center operations, web services, classroom and computer lab technology, and user support, training and outreach.

TTS Research and Geospatial Technology Services (RGTS) is a university-wide resource that covers all aspects of University-wide technology services and programs in support of research across all 10 schools and 3 campuses. These centralized core services include high-performance computing, bioinformatics, visualization, networked storage, software licensing, and virtualization in support of research, geospatial services, collaboration and communication services, and grant planning. By providing the Tufts research community with the highest quality services and by anticipating its technology needs, the goal of our directorate is to enable Tufts researchers to become world leaders in their domain.

Reporting directly to the Director of Research and Geospatial Technology Services (RGTS), the Senior Bioinformatics Specialist provides faculty and student support for bioinformatics, high-performance computing (HPC) and visualization services that are an important part of our research technology service portfolio. Key responsibilities include: participating in the planning process for developing, managing, and supporting the core bioinformatics, HPC and visualization services that support research activities at Tufts University, providing technical support and training, providing consulting services to faculty, post-docs, and students from a wide range of academic backgrounds ranging from biology to health sciences, and from engineering to nutrition and serving as liaison with other TTS directorates that participate to the successful delivery of our services to the Tufts community. This is a highly technical position that requires a strong research background in biomedical and/or quantitative science, including a high level of expertise with bioinformatics algorithms, databases, and analyses with a focus on next-generation sequencing to enable the Tufts community to utilize research technology services to achieve their academic and research goals. Project management, data management and the ability to coordinate and communicate between programmers and wet-lab scientists is critical for success. 
Basic Requirements:
- 5 years of experience with at least 2 years of bioinformatics experience in a higher-education, research, or scientific environment
- Master's degree in a bioinformatics, biomedical or quantitative science
- Experience in at least one of the listed bioinformatics domain: microarray analysis (mRNA, miRNA), next generation sequencing (RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, Exome-seq) or sequence, pathway and functional analysis.
- Strong understanding of research technology tools for bioinformatics, high-performance computing (HPC) and visualization including extensive experience with UNIX/Linux based systems.
- Experience with one or more widely used mathematical software applications such as Matlab, R, Mathematica, Maple, Stata along with experience in data visualization (e.g., Autodesk Maya) and management software and practices.
- Experience using high-level programming languages such as python, perl, java and C/C++.
- Experience managing and building public domain and open source scientific software using the Apache, Linux, MySQL stack, as well as working with HPC environments and queuing systems such as LSF, PBS, Moab, Torque.
- Very strong research background in Bioinformatics and associated research methodologies including relevant literature. 
Excellent oral and written communication skills.
- Strong interpersonal skills.
- Superb customer service and follow-up skills.
- Demonstrated experience in teaching and outreach and project management skills.
- Previous experience providing direct support to diverse, multi-disciplinary teams and students, instructors, or researchers from a wide range of academic backgrounds.
- Working knowledge of basic web development and wikis.
- Ability to prioritize multiple concurrent tasks and meet demanding deadlines.
- Comfortable performing a wide variety of tasks ranging from project planning to consulting and technical support.
- Previous experience with developing services for faculty and students including the development of sustainable business model with associated financial modeling.
- Keen on picking up new knowledge and working on a wide variety of projects.
- Ability to travel between all three Tufts campuses (Medford/Somerville, Boston, Grafton).

Preferred Qualifications:
- PhD in a bioinformatics, biomedical or quantitative science and at least 5 years of work experience
- Evidence of working directly with wet laboratories to perform analyses
- Proven ability to interpret and analyze large data sets and present results synthetically
- Working knowledge of biology, genetics, and cell biology
- Experience with presenting biological results to various internal and external audiences
- Experience with R/BioC, GenePattern, Galaxy, or similar environments
- Competency in statistics with a focus on tools for bioinformatics

Special Work Schedule Requirements: 
- The majority of the work for this position is performed during normal business hours Monday through Friday. However, there may be an occasional need to work during evening hours or on weekends. 

Tufts University is an AA/EO employer and actively seeks candidates from diverse backgrounds.

PI62378305
Tufts University
Somerville, MA 02143