Postdoc: Rare-Disease Data Privacy & Biostatistics

University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill; Chapel Hill (NC); On-site; USD 65,000 - 75,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical and vision coverage

Paid leave

Professional development support

Job summary

The Post-Doc Research Associate (Haendel) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will explore methods for defining rare disease cohort controls and assessing re-identification risk across EHR, claims, registry, and real-world data sources. You will design disclosure controls and collaborate with patient advocacy groups and IRBs to balance data utility with privacy.

This role requires a Ph.D. in a quantitative field and experience with health data.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in biostatistics, statistics, epidemiology, biomedical informatics, computer science, or a related quantitative field.
• Experience with statistical disclosure control, privacy-preserving data methods, or re-identification risk assessment.
• Experience in R or Python for statistical modeling, simulation, and analysis of large health datasets.
• Experience working with sensitive health data (EHR, claims, registry) and completion of human subjects training.
• Ability to work with a geographically distributed team.

Responsibilities

• Investigate methods for defining rare disease cohort controls and assessing re-identification risk.
• Develop a framework for organizing privacy risk factors unique to rare conditions.
• Design and evaluate the creation of control populations for small, rare disease populations.
• Design disclosure controls, including ontology-based aggregation, phenotype coarsening, suppression, and access-based methods.
• Engage with patient advocacy groups, data stewards, and IRBs to align research goals.

Skills

Statistical disclosure control

R or Python

Sensitive health data handling

Distributed team collaboration

Education

Ph.D. in biostatistics or related quantitative field

Tools

sdcMicro

ARX

Job description

The Post-Doc Research Associate (Haendel) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will explore methods for defining rare disease cohort controls and assessing re-identification risk across EHR, claims, registry, and real-world data sources. You will design disclosure controls and collaborate with patient advocacy groups and IRBs to balance data utility with privacy.

This role requires a Ph.D. in a quantitative field and experience with health data.