The VDTRC is hiring! The following positions are open and ideal for motivated individuals of any level who want to prepare for their next training or academic position. Where possible, additional projects can be created for exceptional candidates. Individuals interested to join the VDTRC should email their CV/resume and most recent educational transcripts to: VCICrecruit@gmail.com.
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow (2 positions open)
Position and project description:
Two post-doctoral scholar positions are available at the Vanderbilt Dermatology Translational Research Clinic (VDTRC.org) and the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering to launch translational research careers. These post-doctoral scholar positions are ideal for visionary technical scientists eager to spearhead innovations that will transform the practice of medicine. The goal of the fellow is to develop and deploy technologies in our ongoing multi-center trials to track disease progression and response to treatment. Join our multi-disciplinary team as we tackle clinical challenges in oncology (e.g. stem cell / bone marrow transplantation), rheumatology (e.g. systemic sclerosis), infectious diseases (e.g. mpox), and dermatology (e.g. Stevens-Johnson Syndrome). Please see our flyer specifically for computer science postdocs.
Selected scholars will take the lead on funded projects and will be encouraged to formulate their own research ideas and take on mentees to increase their impact. They will be provided infrastructure and mentoring for independent funding while interacting closely with a broad range of collaborating experts in clinical medicine, technology, and industry partners. Trainees in this well-funded program will receive competitive benefits including NIH rate salary, ensuring their professional development is well-supported. This comprehensive post-doctoral training is an ideal segue towards securing independent faculty positions at leading medical centers. The Vanderbilt University Medical Center is an equal opportunities employer and is committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status.
Specific Post-Doctoral Project Details:
1. Skin mechanics. The scholar will dive into the development and validation of a novel handheld clinical device designed to mechanically measure cutaneous sclerosis. This project will involve signal processing of mechanical vibrations, validation with ultrasound tissue phantoms, and clinical measurement. Our prior results: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41409-018-0346-7
2. Skin Image Analysis. Long-standing collaborations at Vanderbilt have resulted in unique datasets of total body photography of the skin in several severe diseases including cancer therapy complications and infectious diseases. Vastly exceeding anything similar in the public domain, these curated, high-quality datasets include tens of thousands of longitudinal skin images that are coupled to clinical information including outcomes of randomized controlled trials. The scholar will leverage innovative image processing and AI approaches in close collaboration with top clinical experts to discover imaging biomarkers in these datasets. Additionally, more advanced imaging data is being continually acquired prospectively at the Vanderbilt Dermatology Translational Research Clinic (VDTRC.org), including 3D images, hyperspectral data, and clinical bedside videomicroscopy. Technical challenges that the scholar may encounter include registration, segmentation, object identification and classification, colorimetric analysis, ground truth variation, crowd-sourcing, and weakly labeled data. Example of our results: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9197858/
Clinical Study Coordinator / Research Assistant (2 positions open)
This position is ideal for an individual seeking to build up their research experience and publication record in preparation for graduate and professional schools, including MD/PhD programs and dermatology residency. Prior alumni have matched into top competitive positions.
The Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) in Nashville, Tennessee is seeking a motivated, meticulous, and patient-oriented clinical / translational research coordinator to help advance skin imaging projects related to ongoing multicenter clinical trials in the stem cell transplant population. Interest and experience in either quantitative technical work or medical photography are highly desirable for candidates. The new team member will coordinate clinical aspects of innovative projects bringing together experts from the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (Madan Jagasia), Dermatology (Eric Tkaczyk), Computer Science (Benoit Dawant) and the Biophotonics Center within Biomedical Engineering (Anita Mahadevan-Jansen). This environment brings together clinicians, basic scientists, engineers and statisticians in close collaboration due to its interdisciplinary research and close physical proximity of the School of Medicine to the School of Engineering (100-200 yards). Interested individuals should email their CV/resume and most recent educational transcripts to: VCICrecruit@gmail.com