Computational Biologist - Academic Graduate Appointee

LLNL•Livermore, CA

1d•Onsite

About The Position

This is a one-year Academic Graduate Appointee position with the possibility of extension to a maximum of two years. The role supports the development and application of computational analytics, reproducible data workflows, and interactive dashboards for biosurveillance applications. The appointee will contribute to multidisciplinary efforts supporting syndromic surveillance, environmental metagenomics, and related public health and biological threat preparedness applications. Responsibilities include assisting with computational methods and reproducible bioinformatics workflows, evaluating artificial intelligence-enabled tools, and working with diverse biological, environmental, clinical, and surveillance datasets. The appointee will use high-performance computing resources for scalable analyses and help develop robust computational capabilities. This position is in the Advanced Biotechnologies Integration Group in the Biosciences and Biotechnology Division within the Physical and Life Sciences Directorate and requires full-time on-site presence.

Requirements

Ability to secure and maintain a U.S. DOE Q-level security clearance which requires U.S. citizenship.
Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Biology, Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, Engineering, or a related field.
Experience with programming or scripting in Python, R, Bash, and/or a comparable scientific-computing language.
Experience or coursework involving analysis of biological, genomic, metagenomic, epidemiological, environmental, or other complex scientific datasets.
Familiarity with data visualization, dashboard development, or reporting tools.
Familiarity with Linux-based computing environments and command-line tools.
Ability to follow established computational workflows, troubleshoot routine analysis issues with guidance, and document methods and results.
Proficient verbal and written communication skills necessary to effectively communicate technical information.
Interpersonal skills necessary to work in a collaborative research environment and interact with a diverse set of team members.

Nice To Haves

Experience with next-generation sequencing analysis, metagenomics, microbial genomics, biosurveillance, or syndromic surveillance data.
Experience developing reproducible workflows using tools such as Nextflow, Snakemake, WDL, or similar workflow management systems.
Experience using high-performance computing systems, including job schedulers such as Slurm and distributed or parallel computing environments.
Experience with data dashboard and visualization technologies, such as Plotly Dash, Shiny, Power BI, or JavaScript-based visualization frameworks.
Experience with software engineering practices, including Git-based version control, testing, code review, and technical documentation.
Familiarity with relational databases, APIs, biomedical informatics data formats, cloud-compatible data processing tools, and data catalog or metadata management platforms such as DataHub.
Familiarity with designing data-quality controls, metadata standards, and provenance-tracking approaches for scientific data workflows.

Responsibilities

Assist with development of computational analytics and interactive dashboards for biosurveillance, syndromic surveillance, and environmental metagenomics applications.
Build, test, document, and maintain reproducible bioinformatics and data processing workflows using workflow management frameworks.
Analyze structured and unstructured biological, environmental, and surveillance data to identify trends, assess data quality, and support scientific decision making.
Assist with processing, characterization, and visualization of metagenomic sequencing data, including taxonomic, functional, and quality-control analyses.
Apply high-performance computing resources to execute established bioinformatics, statistical, and machine learning workloads.
Evaluate approved agentic tools, with guidance, to support code development, data exploration, documentation, and analytical reporting, consistent with project requirements and established computing practices.
Assist with development of data-ingestion, transformation, and validation processes that support reliable downstream analysis and dashboard visualization.
Create clear visualizations, reports, and dashboard interfaces that communicate analytical results to technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
Assist in developing, testing, and documenting computational workflows, software tools, and analysis pipelines.
Present results to team members and collaborators.
Contribute to technical reports, presentations, and, as appropriate, draft materials supporting publications.
Work in a fast-paced interdisciplinary team supporting research in computational biology, bioinformatics, biosurveillance, and biological threat preparedness.
Perform other duties as assigned.