EPA Computational Toxicology and Risk Assessment Fellowship

Oak Ridge Associated Universities; Durham (NC); On-site; USD 53,000 - 64,000; Full time

Job summary

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Durham, North Carolina invites applications for a full-time ORISE research opportunity focused on data management and toxicology data analysis. Training will occur at the RTP campus in North Carolina.

You will work with an interdisciplinary team on developmental neurotoxicity risk assessment, develop and maintain R code, and contribute to data curation, software tools, and visualizations to support regulatory science decisions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's in a relevant field earned within the last five years.
• Experience with R programming and data analysis.
• Knowledge of biology/toxicology processes.
• Experience with relational databases.
• Familiarity with statistics and data analysis methods.

Responsibilities

• Data management and analysis for developmental neurotoxicity risk assessment.
• Develop and maintain R-based tools and productionize research endpoints.
• Curate data and manage databases and code libraries.
• Create data visualizations and communicate results to stakeholders.
• Document QA procedures and support regulatory science efforts.

Skills

Statistics training

Programming in R

Toxicology knowledge

Reading comprehension

R package development

CRAN packages

Relational databases

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in science

Job description

Organization

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Reference Code

EPA-OCSPP-2026-0021

Application Deadline

12/18/2026 3:00:00 PM Eastern Time Zone

Description

Applications are reviewed on a rolling-basis and applications may close before the deadline.

EPA Office/Lab and Location

A research opportunity is currently available at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP), located in Durham, North Carolina. You will receive training in the Research Triangle Park, NC campus.

The mission of EPA is to protect human health and the environment. EPA works to ensure that: Americans have clean air, land and water; National efforts to reduce environmental risks are based on the best available scientific information; Federal laws protecting human health and the environment are administered and enforced fairly, effectively and as Congress intended; Environmental stewardship is integral to U.S. policies concerning natural resources, human health, economic growth, energy, transportation, agriculture, industry, and international trade, and these factors are similarly considered in establishing environmental policy; All parts of society have access to accurate information sufficient to effectively participate in managing human health and environmental risks; Contaminated lands and toxic sites are cleaned up; and chemicals in the marketplace are reviewed for safety.

Research Project

You will gain experience in data management and analysis across coordinated research and informatics efforts focused on advancing developmental neurotoxicity (DNT) risk assessment and related regulatory science capabilities. These projects encompass a range of data science activities needed to analyze toxicological data, including maintaining models, productionizing research endpoints, developing R packages, and supporting software development, database curation, and quality evaluation efforts for in vitro chemical screening data. Research activities may include acquiring domain knowledge in toxicology and chemistry to support data analysis; wrangling heterogeneous source formats into standard templates for processing; conducting data analysis and curation using controlled vocabularies; performing database scripting; managing code libraries and documentation; identifying and correcting bugs as part of quality control; conducting user acceptance testing; developing automated tools for processing large volumes of data; and applying innovative data science solutions to support risk assessment and regulatory decision-making.

Other Research Activities May Include

• Being a part of an interdisciplinary team of developers and scientists
• Creating data visualizations to communicate results to stakeholders
• Thoroughly documenting all research activities as directed by EPA mentor to comply with EPA quality assurance procedures for transparency and reproducibility
• Drafting reports describing complex datasets or data manipulation procedures
• Presenting research in internal reports/memos to be used by EPA scientists
• You may have the opportunity to present research at scientific conferences or contribute to scientific manuscripts

Learning Objectives

• Design and implement reusable and scalable techniques for data management
• Organize or transform data in databases to support scientific analyses
• Analyze data quality according to specified criteria
• Write scripts and functions in R to support data migration and data curation software tools
• Develop and collaborate with others to evolve scientific applications into production level tools
• Create and interact with APIs to support scientific efforts
• Create proof of concept projects and adapting/maintaining code from other researchers

Mentor(s)

The mentor for this opportunity is Madison Feshuk ([e-mail]).

Anticipated Appointment Start Date

December 8, 2026. All start dates are flexible and vary depending on numerous factors.

Appointment Length

The appointment will initially be for one year and may be renewed three to four additional years upon EPA recommendation and subject to availability of funding.

Level of Participation

The appointment is full time.

Citizenship Requirements

This opportunity is available to U.S. citizens only.

EPA Security Clearance

Completion of a successful background investigation by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is required for an applicant to be on-boarded at EPA.

ORISE Information

This program, administered by ORAU through its contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to manage the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), was established through an interagency agreement between DOE and EPA. Participants do not become employees of EPA, DOE or the program administrator, and there are no employment-related benefits. Proof of health insurance is required for participation in this program. Health insurance can be obtained through ORISE.

ORISE offers all ORISE EPA graduate students and Postdocs a free 5 year membership to the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA).

The successful applicant(s) will be required to comply with Environmental, Safety and Health (ES&H) requirements of the hosting facility.

Questions

Please see the FAQ section of our website. If you have additional questions about the application process please email [e-mail] and include the reference code for this opportunity.

Qualifications

The qualified candidate should have received a bachelor's or master's degree in toxicology, environmental science, cell/molecular biology, biochemistry, biology, chemistry, toxicology, statistics, mathematics, engineering, or a closely related field of study. Degree must have been received within the past five years.

Preferred Skills

• Training or courses in statistics or computer programming
• Domain knowledge of biology or toxicology processes desired
• Strong reading comprehension skills and experience logically interpreting pieces of information from a variety of data source types
• Experience programming in the R language
• Experience utilizing R packages for code development and data analysis, such as devtools and tidyverse, desired
• Experience writing CRAN compliant R packages and/or functions desired
• Experience with relational databases, such as MySQL, PostGreSQL, or others

Stipend

$52,693.00 – $64,453.00 Yearly

Point of Contact

Rachel

Eligibility Requirements

• Citizenship: U.S. Citizen Only
• Degree: Bachelor's Degree or Master's Degree received within the last 60 month(s).
• Discipline(s): Computer, Information, and Data Sciences (Artificial Intelligence (including Robotics, Computer Vision, Human Language Processing, and Machine Learning), Computer Architecture and Grids, Computer Science - Languages and Systems, Computer Science - Theoretical Foundations, Computer Science (general), Computer Systems Analysis, Computer Systems Design (including Signal Processing), Data Science, Databases, Information Retrieval, and Web Search, Graphics and Visualization, Human Computer Interaction, Information Science and Technology, Information Security and Assurance, Networks and Communications, Operating Systems and Middleware, Scientific Computing and Informatics, Software Engineering)
• Engineering (29)
• Environmental and Marine Sciences (14)
• Life Health and Medical Sciences (51)
• Mathematics and Statistics (11)