Month: January 2019

Summer Internships 2019, RStudio

We are excited to announce the second formal summer internship program at RStudio. The goal of this program is to enable RStudio employees to collaborate with students to do work that will help both RStudio users and the broader R community, and help ensure that the community of R developers is as diverse as its community of users. Over the course of the internship, you will work with experienced data scientists, software developers, and educators to create and share new tools and ideas.

The internship pays approximately $12,000 USD (paid hourly), lasts up to 10-12 weeks, and will start around June 1 (depending on your availability, applications are open now, and close at the end of February. To qualify, you must currently be a student (broadly construed – if you think you’re a student, you probably qualify) and have some experience writing code in R and using Git and GitHub. To demonstrate these skills, your application needs to include a link to a package, Shiny app, or data analysis repository on GitHub. It’s OK if you create something specifically for this application: we just want to know that you’re already familiar with the mechanics of collaborative development in R.

RStudio is a geographically distributed team which means you can be based anywhere in the United States (we hope to expand the program to support interns in other countries next year). This means that unless you are based in Boston or Seattle, you will be working 100% remotely, though you will meet with your mentor regularly online, and we will pay for you to travel to one face-to-face work sprint with them.

We are recruiting interns for the following projects:

Calibrated Peer Review – Prototype some tools to conduct experiments to see whether calibrated peer review is a useful and feasible feedback strategy in introductory data science classes and industry workshops. (Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel)

Tidy Blocks – Prototype and evaluate a block-based version of the tidyverse so that young students can do simple analysis using an interface like Scratch. (Greg Wilson)

Data Science Training for Software Engineers – Develop course materials to teach basic data analysis to programmers using software engineering problems and data sets. (Greg Wilson)

Tidy Practice – Develop practice projects for learners to tackle to practice tidyverse (or other) skills using interesting real-world data. (Alison Hill)

Teaching and Learning with RStudio – Create a one-stop guide to teaching with RStudio similar to Teaching and Learning with Jupyter (https://jupyter4edu.github.io/jupyter-edu-book/) (Alison Hill)

Grader Enhancements – grader works with learnr tutorials to grade student code. This project will enhance this ambitious project to help grader identify students’ exact mistakes so that it can help students do better. (Garrett Grolemund)

Object Scrubbers – A lot of R objects contain elements that could be recreated and these can result in large object sizes for large data sets. Also, terms, formulas, and other objects can carry the entire global environment with them when they are saved. This internship would help write a set of methods that would scrub different types of objects to reduce their size on disk. (Max Kuhn and Davis Vaughan)

Production Testing Tools for Data Science Pipelines – This project will build on “applicability domain” methods from computational chemistry to create functions that can be included in a dplyr pipeline to perform statistical checks on data in production. (Max Kuhn)

Shiny Enhancements – There are a several Shiny and Shiny-related projects that are available, depending on the intern’s interests and and skill set. Possible topics include: Shiny UI enhancements, improving performance bottlenecks by rewriting in C and C++, fixing bugs, and creating a set of higher-order reactives for more sophisticated reactive programming. (Barret Schloerke)

ggplot2 Enhancements – Contribute to ggplot2 or an associated package (like scales). You’ll write R code for graphics, but mostly you’ll learn the challenges of managing a large, popular open source project including the care needed to avoid breaking changes, and actively gardening issues. You work will impact the millions of people who use ggplot2. (Hadley Wickham)

R Markdown Enhancements – R Markdown is a cornerstone product of RStudio used by millions to create documents in their own publishing pipelines. The code base has grown organically over several years; the goal of this project is to refactor it. This involves tidying up inconsistencies in formatting, adding a comprehensive test suite, and improving consistency and coverage of documentation. (Rich Iannone)

Apply now! Application deadline is February 22nd.

RStudio is committed to being a diverse and inclusive workplace. We encourage applicants of different backgrounds, cultures, genders, experiences, abilities and perspectives to apply. All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, age, or physical disability. However, applicants must legally be able to work in the United States.


2019 Experiential Internship (Graduate Level) – Health Economics & Outcomes Research

As an AbbVie Experiential Intern, you’ll participate in a paid, ten to twelve-week summer program that is focused on providing students with robust projects throughout the summer. As an intern, you will be located at our corporate headquarters in north suburban Chicago, with housing and shuttle services for eligible students. Throughout the summer, there are planned development and networking activities for the interns.  

The purpose of the internship is to provide meaningful, professional hands-on experience to students with proven academic performance and leadership potential. AbbVie hires students into this internship program based on business need. Ideal candidates will combine technical and business knowledge with analytical strength and creative problem solving abilities.

Department Overview – Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR)

AbbVie’s Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) division generates innovative, high-impact evidence to help define the unmet need and value of innovative therapies to relevant stakeholders. HEOR strives to:

  • Inform strategic decisions and help ensure that patients can access and benefit from appropriate therapies
  • Develop and guide pricing & reimbursement strategies based on evaluation of public health policy & reimbursement environment and scientific collection & analysis of clinical, economic and patient-reported outcomes data
  • Leverage innovative research approaches and partnerships to maximize the use of real-world evidence (RWE) and patient-centric outcomes research for informing internal and external decisions that positively impact patient lives.

Assignment Details

Intern assignments may include, but are not limited to, literature reviews, patient-reported outcomes studies, retrospective claims database analyses, prospective observational studies, and economic model development. Intern may work in one or more disease states within the areas of Immunology, Oncology, Neuroscience, Virology, Endocrinology and Women’s Health to support efforts for on-market or pipeline assets. Tasks may include conceptualizing research plans, protocol development, managing vendors, and writing/ presenting results. Interns may develop analysis plans and conduct analyses of internal databases and/or clinical trial data. Interns may assist in creation of scientific materials like slide decks, white papers, abstracts or manuscripts for disseminating research findings to internal/external audience. Intern will be responsible for attending team meetings, department meetings, and cross-functional team meetings to gain a better understanding of the role of HEOR within the biopharmaceutical industries and at AbbVie.

Basic

  • Must be currently enrolled in a graduate level program at an accredited university (Master’s or PhD or PharmD) preferably in the fields of pharmacy, health economics, health policy, epidemiology, statistics, data analytics, economics and psychology and related disciplines in life sciences
  • Strong academic performance, minimum cumulative GPA = 3.0/4.0
  • Completed at least 1 year of graduate level studies prior to internship experience
  • Must be enrolled in an accredited program for at least one additional semester following your internship

 

Preferred Requirements

  • Doctoral Candidate with course work in epidemiology, research methods or statistics.
  • Prior internship/research experience
  • Exceptionally demonstrated interpersonal skills
  • Proven leadership skills
  • Demonstrated oral and written communication skills
  • Proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
  • Adept in data analysis using statistical package (e.g. SAS)
  • Prior experience in conducting literature review

For more information and to apply, click HERE


Oxfam, Data and Information Analyst

Category : Alumni GLEPI

Oxfam International has been refining and improving processes related to annual planning (programs and resources), program quality reflection, operational progress and budget reporting, and program results reporting. These processes and formats generate quantitative and qualitative data, as well as information on Oxfam programs and resources.

The data and information are to be collated, aggregated, analyzed, visualized/displayed, and used in decisionmaking and governance processes. Some of the analyses are routine and pre-defined by Oxfam’s annual and quarterly management and reporting processes; others are ad-hoc, one-time, and/or tailored to specific questions and needs. Quantitative analyses require descriptive and some inferential work, as well as data visualization. Analyses may be both inductive and deductive, depending on purpose and questions raised. It may be necessary to set up syntax, in appropriate statistical software, to import, merge and analyze data and provide visualization on a routine basis with new data collected annually. Products will range from PowerPoints summarizing findings, to brief written narrative pieces, to Excel sheets with aggregated data, to infographics visualization pieces. When analyses are written up in narrative form, they should be suitable for brief, user-friendly, wide-consumption pieces such as Workplace posts, blog posts, podcasts, etc.

Examples of existing processes that need data analysis

1. Evaluation reports

2. Planning and reporting exercises from different groups, from which we need to extract topline summaries

3. Questionnaires (e.g. customer satisfaction; consultations, systems for mutual accountability and stakeholder feedback)

4. Analysis and sense-making of progress reports

5. Output reports (quantitative and qualitative data)

Approach

The clients of analyses, and main consumers of the analyst’s work, are mainly management and governance staff, such as regional directors, country directors, regional leadership teams, global program director, knowledge for impact director and team, operations director and team, governance bodies. The approach of the analyst will entail:

• working with clients to understand and help define/sharpen their questions based on their purpose and needs;

• preparing datasets as needed (e.g., by importing, or merging, or extracting, etc.);

• conducting analyses;

• preparing and sharing the output in an appropriate and user-friendly format;

• discussing and validating it with clients;

• advising, in an iterative process as appropriate, on what questions the data, information and analyses can and cannot answer;

• refining, adding, or adjusting as necessary based on client inputs and requests; and

• finalizing the analysis products to be used internally and externally

In this, the analyst will take a strong customer-focused approach and maintain customer satisfaction as a key measure of success. At the same time, the analyst will maintain the appropriate level of rigor in handling, managing, and analysing all data and information. While not setting the agenda for analyses or defining the purpose and questions, the analyst will be expected to liaise with various Oxfam teams and departments to understand the work well enough – particularly the larger processes that produce the data and information – to perform analyses and advise on them in ways that are appropriate and fit-for-purpose.

In addition, the analyst will collaborate with Oxfam Affiliates to bring together datasets for cross-confederation use and analysis. These may be data expressly collected for monitoring, evaluation, and/or research purposes, or data generated in the course of Oxfam performing its work, such as data in various management systems and reports. In either case, the work will require designing the merge and resulting new dataset, and working with colleagues in Oxfam Affiliates to carry out the

Skills

• Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods analysis

• Statistical software (with preference for open-source solutions)

• Qualitative analysis software a plus • Strong customer focus

• Ability to balance rigor with creative approaches to arrive at fit-for-purpose products

• A sense of humour and a dose of patience

• Problem-solving attitude and track record

• Strong interpersonal skills

• Ability to communicate analyses to management without jargon, in a succinct, easy to digest manner

• Cross-cultural communication or experience in cross-cultural/international settings a plus

• Experience working virtually and remotely

• Willingness to work outside of usual office hours to accommodate different time zones

• Ability to plan work, self-direct, and meet short deadlines

• Fluent in both oral and written English. Working knowledge of Spanish and/or French is desirable.

Conditions:

This is offered as a consultancy for 12 months, from late January/early February 2019, on a full-time basis (approximately 35 hours per week). Why a short-term assignment? This is a new function that we need to test and learn. Eventually adapt or develop into a longer-term position in the program teams. The position will be reporting to the Knowledge for Impact Team (KIT) of Oxfam, with a % of the time dedicated to joint work between KIT and Operations, mainly the planning 2019-20 and the reporting 2018-19 cycles.

Location: home-based or one of the Oxfam offices.

Remuneration: to be discussed

Contact: Velina Petrova (Velina [dot] petrova [at] oxfam [dot] org) and Cristina Sette (Cristina [dot] sette [at] oxfam [dot] org)


RACPAC Lunch and Learn, 1/29

Category : News/Events

Join Rollins Association for Cancer Prevention and Control (RACPAC) for their general body meeting from 12 to 1 pm on January 29. Lunch will be served.


Alumni Spotlight: Vanessa Da Costa

Category : #WeAreEmoryEPI

Vanessa Da Costa, GLEPI MPH, 2018

Global Epidemiology Fellow at CDC South Africa (PHI/CDC Global Health Fellowship Program)

I am on the Quality Improvement Team at CDC South Africa. In this position I support the development of data collection and analysis tools for quality improvement projects. I also manage SIMS (Site Improvement Monitoring System) to ensure adequate data collection, visit completion, and quality assurance. I work with the Quality Improvement team to collaborate across CDC branches (prevention, care and treatment, etc) and support implementing partners in our overall goal of helping facilities reach their 90-90-90 PEPFAR targets through the use of quality improvement strategies.

From the classroom, I found my coursework in evidence-based decision making, data cleaning to be very helpful skills to my work in this position. Additionally, I am very glad I took the weekend EPI Info course, since I use that software on a daily basis! My work-study experience at Rollins is instrumental to my work now. While working with the Rwanda Zambia HIV Research Group and my faculty advisor in the Department of Epidemiology, I was able to lead the data collection tool development and actively participate in the monitoring and evaluation of a postpartum family planning intervention. Those skills I gained while at RSPH are directly related to the work I am doing at CDC South Africa.

Additionally, take advantage of courses outside of your department. The qualitative coursework I’ve completed and accompanying practical experience is beneficial to my work in Quality Improvement. Another suggestion is to take advantage of out of classroom learning opportunities. Personally, my non-classroom experiences are just as valuable- if not more- than my in classroom ones. This includes work study, practicum, and Rollins mHealth Collaboration sessions on implementing digital health strategies!

 


THIS WEEK: Chair’s Chat, Wednesday 1/23

Category : News/Events

Please RSVP for the Chair’s Chat on Wednesday, January 23. Pizza will be provided!


GPHA Conference Scholarship

The Georgia Public Health Association is offering a limited number of scholarships to students for the 90th Annual Meeting and Conference at Westin Buckhead, Atlanta May 7-9, 2019. Scholarship recipients pay a reduced registration rate of $50. All other expenses such as travel and lodging are the responsibility of the conference participant.

The deadline for application is February 15, 2019 at 11:59 P.M. All scholarship applicants will be notified of scholarship decisions no later than March 1, 2019.

Full student conference registration is $165 before March 1, 2019, and $195 on and after March 1. It is advised that all students applying for the scholarship defer registering for the conference until scholarship awards are announced. All scholarships must be acknowledged with the $50 discounted registration by March 6, 2019, or risk forfeiture. Students who applied but did not receive a scholarship will be offered the early registration rate through March 15, 2019, by calling the GPHA office at 404-861-8423.

Each applicant must be:

● A student currently enrolled in a course of study leading to a degree in a health field (i.e. nursing, nutrition, epidemiology, medicine, or public health, etc.)

● An active member of Georgia Public Health Association in good standing. Join here now: http://www.gapha.org/why-join/. Scholarship recipients agree to:

● Attend the GPHA Annual Meeting and Conference in full Tuesday, May 7 through Thursday, May 9, 2019;

● Volunteer at the conference. Volunteer activities might include introducing a concurrent session presenter, staffing a table in the conference exhibit area, or assisting with other on-site duties. Scholarship recipients will be contacted with details; and

● Attend the Student Networking Mixer during the conference.

The establishment of the Jim Alley scholarship fund is to honor James W. Alley, MD, MPH who served as Director of the Division of Public Health of the State of Georgia for 17 years. During his tenure, he focused public health’s attention for the first time on chronic diseases and later initiated analysis and interventions on infant mortality and how social factors play a role in morbidity and mortality. As a medical missionary to Bolivia, Dr. Alley helped establish a local Board of Health in the city of Montero to attempt to remediate some of the health issues of the indigent and medically needy. He continued to visit and work in this eastern area of Bolivia for over a decade and left the region with the most respected medical service in Bolivia. Dr. Alley served a term as President of GPHA. As a staunch supporter of GPHA, he recognized the value of health workers having an organization that could systematically encourage networking and continuing education.

To learn more about the Georgia Public Health Association’s Annual Meeting and Conference please visit their website at http://www.gapha.org/annual-meeting-conference/.

To access the application, click HERE


WHO Cambodia position

Category : Alumni GLEPI

WHO Cambodia is looking for a P4 epidemiologist to join their WHE team as soon as possible. In the interest of time, we would offer a 5.5 month position to the successful candidate with a possibility of extension if the work is satisfactory. The terms of reference are as follows:

Expected specific outputs/outcomes:

·        Clear guidelines and technical support given to national counterparts at various levels as required in all aspects of programme planning, organization, implementation, scale-up and evaluation of activities for the prevention and control of emerging diseases;

·        Strengthened coordination and collaboration in Cambodia between all stakeholders and partners working for emerging diseases and Applied Epidemiology Training (AET) in Cambodia

·        Strengthened linkage between AET and Veterinary Epidemiology Training

·        Investigated communicable disease outbreaks or health security events in the country

·        Coordination and supervision of epidemiological evaluation of surveillance systems, identifying constraints in control measures, examining the potential for policy development, assisting Member States with implementation and reviewing the surveillance systems to ensure quality improvement

·        Recommend methods for enhancing capacity for surveillance, risk assessment and response in the country

·        Information sharing of influenza and respiratory disease surveillance, and preparedness and response plan to pandemic

·        Technical and financial gaps identified and resources mobilized

 

Specific roles to be undertaken within this job:

1.      To provide technical advice to the government in further developing Applied Epidemiology Training in Cambodia

2.      To support capacity building strategies by providing course materials and supervising trainees of Applied Epidemiology Training in Cambodia

3.      To advise on human health epidemiology for Veterinary Epidemiology Training and supervise trainees of the programme

4.      To identify needs for technical assistance and to work with Ministry of Health (MoH) and other WHO staff to strengthen core capacity in national communicable diseases surveillances, risk assessment and response to ensure MoH can meet APSED 2010 and IHR 2005 requirements

5.      To provide technical advice to the government and collaborate with partners in influenza and respiratory disease surveillance, and pandemic preparedness and response

6.      To assist in the joint MoH – WHO investigation and response to communicable disease outbreaks and unusual health events in Cambodia as the need arises

7.      To analyze and interpret epidemiological information and share with partners

8.      To assist in any other tasks as instructed by WHO Representative

 

Specific skills and knowledge required:

1.      Broad knowledge of principles, practices, methodology and techniques in public health and epidemiology

2.      Significant knowledge and skills in communicable disease control, including teaching and advisory techniques

3.      Ability to develop plans, organize resources and take actions to ensure objectives are achieved within realistic timeframes

4.      Very good interpersonal skills

5.      Ability to work independently and to take initiative

 

Education (Qualifications):

Essential: University degree in health or social science with postgraduate degree in epidemiology or public health from a recognized university.

Desirable: Completed a course in Field Epidemiology Training Programme.

 

Experience:

Essential: Minimum seven years’ work experience in epidemiology and /or public health and Field Epidemiology Training Programme, including experience at international level.

Desirable: Experience in managing Field Epidemiology Training Programme or modified Field Epidemiology Training in developing countries.

Please contact Asheena Khalakdina, Team Leader for WHE Cambodia (khalakdinaa [at] who [dot] int) with CV and letter of interest.


Epidemiology Phd Summer Internship

Upper Providence, PA

Description of Department: In the Epidemiology team, we are committed to diversity as a goal and work to ensure diversity is infused into our intern cohort which serves as a critical source of early career talent for the organization. At GSK, we focus on creating an inclusive organization where all employees feel engaged and know their work makes an important contribution. An inclusive environment welcomes different knowledge, perspectives, experiences, and working styles from across our global population. This not only enhances individual creativity and innovation, but also makes good business sense. Epidemiology at GSK Pharma comprises a team of highly-skilled subject matter experts who provide epidemiological and analytical leadership to influence decision-making across drug discovery, development, and commercialization. We analyze a wide variety of data sources including electronic health records, administrative claims, patient registries, and clinical trial data. Our work supports drug development by providing real-world insights into patterns of disease occurrence, healthcare utilization, and the safety and effectiveness of treatments.

Job Description: We are seeking a motivated and enthusiastic summer intern who is interested in learning more about the application of epidemiology in the pharmaceutical industry and the use of observational data to generate evidence in support of GSK products across the drug development lifecycle. The intern may work on the following projects: literature review to characterize target patient populations for medicines in development and/or observational database analyses to generate descriptive data for target patient populations. Interns will be exposed to ways of working in the research and development (R&D) arm of a large global pharmaceutical company and gain knowledge and experience in how epidemiology, observational data analyses, and health services research are used in R&D. Interns will sit in the Epidemiology team, part of the larger Value Evidence Outcomes and Medical Engagement department. They will have the opportunity to interact with and understand some of the key groups that Epidemiology interacts with such as Real World Data Analytics, Health Outcomes, and Safety partners. Basic

Qualifications:

• Pursuing a PhD in a quantitative discipline such as public health, epidemiology, biostatistics, health economics, or outcomes research.

• At least 2 years of completed course work and training in observational research design and analysis techniques.

• Have an active student status and/or within 12 months post-graduation from a degree program.

• Be legally authorized to work in the U.S. for the duration of the intern/co-op assignment. There is no visa sponsorship available for this position.

• Be available to work full-time throughout the internship or co-op.

• Have a 3.0 or greater cumulative GPA.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Candidates should be self-motivated with the ability to work independently as well as part of a team.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills are required.

• Prior experience in observational research would be ideal.

Eligibility Requirements:

• Successfully pass a drug screen and background check prior to assignment target start date.

• Provide your own funding for relocation and commuting.

To apply, click HERE


UNICEF Internship: Digital Epidemiology, Office of Innovation, due 1/25

How can you make a difference?

What could be a better way to spend your winter than trying to help develop and streamline lifesaving innovations in UNICEF – one of the world’s largest organizations serving children? The UNICEF Internship Programme offers eligible/qualified students the opportunity to acquire direct practical experience in UNICEF’s work under the direct supervision of experienced UNICEF staff.

As a UNICEF Innovation Intern you will:

  • Get to work on a specific project of strategic value to the team. You’ll get to present your ideas and outputs to the team at the end of the summer.
  • Receive dedicated mentorship from a member of multidisciplinary team related to your project and your career and development plans
  • Be part of a dedicated induction programme to UNICEF and UNICEF Innovation
  • Have a fun and inspiring internship experience

Main responsibilities will be:

  • Cleaning, curating and analyzing air traffic human mobility data
  • Supporting in exploring new geospatial datasets
  • Developing methodologies and pipelines to generate insights from human mobility data.
  • Developing methodologies and pipelines to improve the accuracy of existing early warning and response system for dengue outbreaks by integrating human mobility based variables
  • Visualizing, interpreting and communicating findings to the team, UNICEF country offices, and the broader public.

To qualify as an advocate for every child, you will…

  • Be enrolled in a Ph.D. programme in Computational/Digital Epidemiology or have graduated within the past two years. Applicants must be at least 18 years old.
  • Have excellent academic performance as demonstrated by recent university or institution records.
  • Have no immediate relatives (e.g. father, mother, brother, sister) working in any UNICEF office.
  • Have no other relatives in the line of authority which the intern will report to.
  • Additional consideration will be given for any past experience.
  • Have expertise in data science, complex systems and/or machine learning.
  • Have expertise in epidemiology and global health.
  • Have expertise in developing models to predict patterns of spatiotemporal spread of vector-borne diseases and early warning systems
  • Have experience with geospatial data analysis and visualization (including shapefile/raster mapping)
  • Have excellent programming skills: Python or R.
  • Fluency in English is required.

For more information and to apply, click HERE.


Upcoming Events

  • 2024 Charles C. Shepard Award Symposium May 8, 2024 at 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm zoom.us… Online Location: https://zoom.us/j/96537866614The Charles C. Shepard Award is given to thegraduating masters student who is deemed bythe faculty to have prepared the most scholarlyresearch paper. Please join us to recognize andcelebrate this year’s finalists who will present aposter of their work.
  • RSPH Staff Council Presents: Cheers and Beers - Schoolhouse Edition May 16, 2024 at 5:00 pm – 8:00 pm Networking and Special Event Event Type: Networking,Special EventContact Name: Staff CouncilContact Email: rsphstaffcouncil@emory.eduRSPH staff and post-docs are invited to an evening of camaraderie and delicious bites, presented by the RSPH Staff Council. Space is limited. Watch your email for a link to RSVP.
  • The Summer Institute in Statistics and Modeling in Infectious Diseases (SISMID) July 15, 2024 – July 31, 2024 Conference / Symposium Event Type: Conference / SymposiumSeries: The Summer Institute in Statistics and Modeling in Infectious Diseases (SISMID)Speaker: Leaders in the FieldContact Name: Pia ValerianoContact Email: pvaleri@emory.eduLink: https://sph.emory.edu/SISMID/index.htmlThe Summer Institute in Statistics and Modeling in Infectious Diseases (SISMID) is designed to introduce infectious disease researchers to modern methods of statistical analysis and mathematical modeling.

Follow Us on Social Media: