Career Center

The Research Informatics Solutions (RIS) group within the University of Minnesota Supercomputing Institute (MSI) is hiring two full-time Bioinformatics Analysts to support research at the University of Minnesota. Analysts in these positions will conduct a wide array of bioinformatics analyses for projects in diverse research areas and biological systems. Successful candidates will join the twelve-person RIS group at MSI.

Our group meets the bioinformatics needs of researchers across the university, analyzing data from model and non-model organisms generated from a variety of technologies, including genomic transcriptomic and epigenomic assays. Projects frequently utilize new technologies, including the latest developments in long read sequencing, scRNA-seq or spatial transcriptomics.

The ideal candidates will have advanced knowledge of next generation sequencing technologies with demonstrated practical experience in developing and carrying out analytical strategies in the context of NGS applications (e.g. bulk and single-cell RNA-seq, spatial transcriptomics, DNA SNP and structural variant detection and population-level variant calling, de novo genome or transcriptome assembly, etc.). While candidates ideally will have experience in more than one type of bioinformatics analysis, candidates are not expected to have experience in all types of analyses we handle and learning new analysis techniques is part of the role.

As part of an interdisciplinary team, successful candidates will have the responsibilities to:

• Serve as a bioinformatics analyst and workflow developer for research projects.
• Consult with researchers on experimental design and planning.
• Design and implement appropriate informatics workflows.
• Identify and integrate new, cutting-edge molecular technologies and analysis methods as they become useful for research and/or clinical purposes (e.g., single-cell expression profiling, long-read sequencing, spatial transcriptomics, etc.).
• Appropriately document and communicate methods and results through both internal and external reports, publications, and presentations.

Required Qualifications

• Doctorate (e.g. in life sciences, computer science, or related field) with 3+ years of research experience in genomics, genetics, molecular biology, or computational biology.
• Hands-on experience in developing and carrying out bioinformatic analyses and pipelines for analyzing datasets from high-throughput platforms such as next generation sequencing.
• Experience/general proficiency with UNIX shell environment, a programming language (ideally R or python), plus currently used tools (e.g. BWA, HISAT2, STAR, GATK, freebayes, Cell Ranger, Seurat, etc.).
• Must be able to understand and translate life scientist researchers' scientific goals into analytical strategies and process requirements.
• Must be able to function as part of a team while demonstrating self-initiative to achieve the project's goals and the group's mission.
• Critical and independent thinking.
• Excellent oral and written English communication and interpersonal skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Image analysis skills, particularly image segmentation, are highly desirable.
• Advanced statistical and data modeling skills.