Postdoctoral Fellowship in Childhood Asthma and Respiratory Disease Epidemiology Research

The Center for Asthma Research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN seeks a Postdoctoral Fellow to join an active research team focused on the developmental origins of asthma and child respiratory health and disease. This fellowship is intended for candidates who aspire to develop the experience and skills to have an independently funded research program, to conduct impactful scholarly research to enhance our understanding of child respiratory health, impact policy and promote disease prevention.

Investigators in the Vanderbilt Center for Asthma Research have access to a multitude of clinical and biologic data from both prospective and retrospective cohorts, including prospective birth cohorts with carefully phenotyped respiratory disease and lung health outcomes and high dimensional biologic data and electronic health record and administrative data of diverse populations in Medicaid, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and other medical health systems creating study populations of up to ten million participants. The Center for Asthma Research currently includes 20 scientists, 5 postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. In addition, there are more than 35 staff who are organized into an infrastructure to support both prospective and retrospective epidemiologic studies: Clinical coordinator care, Database and analytics core, Laboratory core, Research nursing core. In addition, there are 7 biostatistician co-investigators supported by the funded Center studies with a wide variety of biostatistical expertise with whom our post-doctoral fellow’s work. The Vanderbilt Center for Asthma Research is one of the largest national asthma research programs and whose scientists are internationally respected for their innovative study designs and high-impact research.

A core mission of Dr. Hartert and the Center for Asthma Research is training the next generation of scientists, and the Center is structured to provide a broad range of support for trainees and is fully invested in providing post-doctoral fellows with the training, tools, and support they need for establishing their own path to an independent research career. The Center for Asthma Research and Vanderbilt have a strong track record of developing early-stage investigators, obtaining mentored-scientist awards (K-awards) and transitioning to independence. In addition to Center resources, Vanderbilt offers specialized training programs for post-doctoral fellows and early-stage investigators through the Edge for Scholars Program, the VICTR program and the BRET office. These programs offer seminars on important career development skills, ethics and regulatory training, studio programs for manuscript and grant review, group programs in scheduled grant development, and easily accessible pilot data funding. In addition, Vanderbilt is fortunate to have a number of internal K-award programs as well as T32 programs, two of which are hosted within our division.

The Fellow will join the research team of Tina Hartert, MD, MPH, who is the Director of the Center for Asthma Research. Vanderbilt and the Center for Asthma Research are known for having a highly collaborative environment and a distinctly translational group of investigators with broad expertise who are committed to mentoring and generous with their time. In addition to the Vanderbilt-based investigators, the funded research program on which the fellow will work includes long-term multidisciplinary research projects with collaborations with more than a dozen external academic institutions in the US and internationally. The Fellow will contribute to work focused on understanding modifiable risk factors for asthma development and defining factors influencing lung health. The fellow will be exposed to a diverse group of investigators both at Vanderbilt and externally as well as exposure to a broad range of topics.

Required qualifications include a PhD or equivalent degree in epidemiology, molecular epidemiology, public health, or a related field, or an MD with an MPH or other formal research training. Candidates should have first-authored peer-reviewed original research publications and interest or expertise in respiratory disease research. The initial term is two years with the possibility of extension.

Please email a letter outlining qualifications and areas of interest along with curriculum vitae to:

Tina Hartert, MD, MPH
Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics

 email: tina.hartert@vumc.org

VUMC is an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer and strongly encourages women and applicants of color to apply.