Junior Research Assistant

University of Chicago • Hyde Park, IL

5d • $24 - $24

About The Position

We seek a Junior Research Assistant who will analyze large-scale biological data sets and help create open-source R and Python software to support our lab’s methodological research. Working closely with Professor Donnat, the assistant will preprocess raw omics data, conduct exploratory and multivariate analyses (e.g., PCA, CCA), and iterate on new algorithms for mutant detection and pathway discovery. The role is ideal for a recent master’s graduate who enjoys both coding and statistics and who is eager to learn cutting-edge methods in computational biology.

Requirements

• Minimum requirements include a college or university degree in related field.
• Minimum requirements include knowledge and skills developed through < 2 years of work experience in a related job discipline.

Nice To Haves

• Master ’ s degree in Statistics, Computer Science, Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, or a closely related field by start date.
• Coursework or project experience in multivariate statistics and/or machine learning.
• Proficient in R and Python for data analysis.
• Experience with biological or ecological data (e.g., RNA-seq, microbiome, metabolomics).
• Prior contribution to an open-source project or package.
• Familiarity with high-performance or cloud computing (Slurm, AWS, GCP).
• Background in high-dimensional or spatial statistics.
• Familiarity with tidyverse, Bioconductor, scikit-learn, and pandas.
• Comfort with Git and Linux command line.
• Strong quantitative reasoning and problem-solving ability.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Ability to manage multiple tasks and meet deadlines in a collaborative setting.

Responsibilities

• Clean, annotate, and batch-correct high-throughput sequencing and phenotyping data.
• Design and execute pipelines for mutant detection and pathway analysis (e.g., PCA, sparse CCA, eCCA).
• Perform rigorous QC and visualization to validate findings.
• Develop and maintain R and Python packages that implement lab methods; write unit tests and documentation.
• Automate data workflows using Git, CI, and reproducible-research best practices.
• Summarize results in figures, slide decks, and draft sections of manuscripts.
• Present progress at weekly group meetings and collaborate with graduate students and postdocs.
• Provide technical support for ongoing projects (hardware, software, data transfer).
• Maintains technical and administrative support for a research project
• Analyzes and maintains data and/or specimens.
• Conducts literature reviews.
• Assists with preparation of reports, manuscripts and other documents.
• Perf orm other related duties as assigned.

Benefits

• The University of Chicago offers a wide range of benefits programs and resources for eligible employees, including health, retirement, and paid time off.
• Information about the benefit offerings can be found in the Benefits Guidebook .

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Part-time
• Career Level: Entry Level
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees