Research Associate in Digital Phenotyping

We are seeking a Research Associate in Digital Phenotyping. The purpose of the role is to define and implement digital phenotypes from sensor data and electronic health records. The post holder will be a member of two project teams.  The first project is “CONNECT: Digital markers to predict psychosis relapse”. This project will recruit individuals with psychosis and use smart phone apps to collect passive and active data using a prospective observational cohort study design. We will use this data to develop and validate a personalised risk prediction algorithm for relapse. The second project is the Mental Health Mission (MHM), a strategic £42.7m investment by the UK government to transform mental health research and care across the UK by combining the strengths of UK mental health research and innovation, commercial opportunities and priorities, NHS and patient priorities, and external investment. The MHM’s ambitions are to address the significant unmet need for innovative new treatments and technologies and the development of more precise treatments and interventions. Data and digital technologies are the key to achieving these aims.

The postholder’s main duty will be responsibility for:

• Identify outcomes of interest. Working with clinicians, trialists and statisticians you will identify core outcomes that can be capture from patient generated health data and electronic health records. You will develop a data and feature dictionary for the project and participate in dissemination to the wider community.
• Map data to outcomes. You will develop and validate mappings of data from sensors on  smartphones and wearables and electronic health records to the identified outcomes.
• Develop standardised approaches. You will develop a data and outcomes dictionary for the project and participate in dissemination to the wider community both nationally and internationally.

You will join an engaged data science community at Manchester with of over 400 investigators working across the University in different disciplines allied to data sciences and connected through the Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. Our expertise covers the complete data science life-cycle: from information management, through analytics, to practical applications. A key feature of our approach is very close coupling between methodologists and translational scientists, drawing on strength-in-depth in real-world applications of data science. This creates a virtuous circle, where challenging real-world problems drive the methodology research agenda, whilst providing a natural route to exploiting new algorithms and methods. We believe this deeply multidisciplinary approach is one of the distinctive features of data science at Manchester. Manchester is a member of The Alan Turing Institute: the UK’s national institute for data science, and researchers at Manchester lead a Turing research programme in health.

You must have post graduate degree (or equivalent) in a relevant discipline. You will possess data science skills. Any experience of mental health research is welcome.

As this role involves research at a postgraduate level, applicants who are not an EEA national or a national of an exempt country and who will require sponsorship under the Skilled Worker route of the UK Visas and Immigration’s (UKVI) Points Based System in order to take up the role, will be required to apply for an Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS) Certificate and will need to obtain this prior to making any official visa application UKVI.                      

Enquiries about the vacancy, shortlisting and interviews:

Name: Professor John Ainsworth

Email: john.ainsworth@macnhester.ac.uk

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