Senior Epidemiologist

ubc; Vancouver; On-site; CAD 98,000 - 147,000; Full time

Job summary

The Senior Epidemiologist will provide technical and statistical leadership for multiple research projects related to wildfire smoke and population health in British Columbia (BC) and across Canada. The incumbent will be responsible for a range of activities spanning the quantitative research cycle, including data access requests and developing reproducible pipelines for data cleaning and preparation.

At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to excellence in

Responsibilities

• Designs and conducts epidemiologic studies related to wildfire smoke and population health.
• Builds data pipelines to enable reproducible analyses across studies.
• Supervises and supports project staff and research trainees on study design, data preparation, analysis, and reporting.
• Manages data access requests and amendments for multiple platforms (e.g., HDP, PANDA).
• Presents methods and results to project teams and external audiences, including conferences and papers.
• Leads technical writing and data visualization for high-impact publications and reports.
• Supports grant development for further wildfire smoke research, including budgeting.

Job description

Staff - Non Union

Job Category

M&P - AAPS

Job Profile

AAPS Salaried - Statistical Analysis, Level C

Job Title

Senior Epidemiologist

Department

Henderson Laboratory | Centre for Disease Control | Faculty of Medicine

Compensation Range

$8,810.92 - $13,202.50 CAD Monthly The Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.

Posting End Date

September 9, 2026 Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the Posting End Date.

Job End Date

December 31, 2026

Job Summary

The Senior Epidemiologist will provide technical and statistical leadership for multiple, cutting-edge research projects related to wildfire smoke and population health in British Columbia (BC) and across Canada. The incumbent will be responsible for a range of activities spanning the quantitative research cycle, including data access requests, developing reproducible pipelines for data cleaning and preparation, designing and conducting advanced epidemiologic analyses, and preparing knowledge translation materials, including presentations, reports, and scientific journal articles.

At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career.

Organizational Status

The Senior Epidemiologist will report to the Dr. Sarah Henderson, who is the Scientific Director, Environmental Health at the BC Centre for Disease Control and a Professor (Partner) at the UBC School of Population and Public Health. The Senior Epidemiologist will work closely with other principal investigators and will oversee the work of other research staff and graduate trainees contributing to the projects at SFU, UBC, BCCDC, Health Canada, uOttawa, and other partner agencies.

Work Performed

Designs and conducts epidemiologic studies to address multiple and varied research questions related to wildfire smoke and population health, including (but not limited to):

• Short-term exposure to wildfire smoke and acute respiratory, cardiovascular, and neurological outcomes in children and adults
• Long-term exposure to wildfire smoke and the development of chronic respiratory, cardiovascular, and neurological conditions in children and adults
• Prenatal exposure to wildfire smoke and adverse pregnancy and early life outcomes
• Wildfire smoke exposure and previously under-studied outcomes such as lab-confirmed infectious respiratory disease, ocular disease, and fungal skin infections
• Consults with senior statisticians to ensure study design and analysis plans are appropriate and minimally biased
• Builds data pipelines to ensure efficient and reproducible epidemiologic analyses across multiple studies
• Supervises and supports other project staff and research trainees on study design, data preparation, analysis, and reporting
• Manages data access requests and amendments for multiple platforms, including the BC Health Data Platform (HDP), the PHSA Platform for Analytics and Data (PANDA), and platforms used by national project partners
• Presents research methods and results to project teams and external audiences, including delivering conference and symposia papers on epidemiologic methods and results
• Leads technical writing and data visualization for high-impact peer-reviewed publications and other project reports
• Supports grant development for further research related to wildfire smoke and population health, including project budgeting
• Other tasks, as required by project leads.

Consequence of Error/Judgement

The Senior Epidemiologist will be responsible for generating statistically defensible epidemiologic evidence to inform provincial and national policy and practice related to wildfire smoke exposure. Errors in this work could lead to spurious relationships and incorrect conclusions that perpetuate into misinformed policy and practice decisions with harmful impacts for the entire population. Wildfire smoke is likely to be the most consequential effect of the changing climate in Canada, and robust evidence is required to guide population health protection in the decades ahead. Due to the use of individual-level administrative health data in these projects, the Senior Epidemiologist must understand and exemplify the ethics of confidentiality, sensitivity, and respect and must