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School of Medicine Established in 1930, Duke University School of Medicine is the youngest of the nation's top medical schools. Ranked sixth among medical schools in the nation, the School takes pride in being an inclusive community of outstanding learners, investigators, clinicians, and staff where interdisciplinary collaboration is embraced and great ideas accelerate translation of fundamental scientific discoveries to improve human health locally and around the globe. Composed of more than 2,500 faculty physicians and researchers, more than 1,300 students, and more than 6,000 staff, the Duke University School of Medicine along with the Duke University School of Nursing, Duke University Health System and the Private Diagnostic Clinic (PDC) comprise Duke Health. a world-class academic medical center. The Health System encompasses Duke University Hospital, Duke Regional Hospital, Duke Raleigh Hospital, Duke Primary Care, Duke Home and Hospice, Duke Health and Wellness, and multiple affiliations.

A postdoctoral Research Associate (computational biology and bioinformatics area) position is open at Duke University School of Medicine in the lab of Dr. Yi Zhang starting Mar 2026 or later. The ideal candidate will develop novel machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML/AI) methods for genomics data, especially: large-scale single-cell genomics data, high-definition spatial genomics, digital pathology data, and apply the computational methods to understand biomedical problems like tumor microenvironment, immunology, and aging. The individual will work with Dr. Yi Zhang (https://yi-zhang-compbio-lab.github.io) to develop computational methods and collaborate with Dr. Tianlong Chen (https://tianlong-chen.github.io/) at Department of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), and/or with other groups in quantitative genomics areas in and outside Duke University. The postdoc candidate will join a highly collaborative team to develop ML/AI x genomics methodology, publish in top CompBio/CS conferences and high impact journals, and obtain training on career development in a supportive environment.

Preferred qualifications:

PhD to expect in one year, or PhD completed in the last 1-3 years, in a quantitative discipline, such as Computational Biology, Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Data science, Physics, Mathematics, Bioinformatics etc; Candidates with multidisciplinary backgrounds are welcome.

Strong skills in computational and data analytical methodology development and implementation; experience in machine learning and deep learning models, and willingness to learn about new methods, is a plus.

Strong programming skills in Python, and Linux Shell; experience in developing methods as open source repositories at e.g. GitHub is a plus.

Strong motivation and interest to analyze genomics data and interpret biomedicine from data; experience in single-cell and spatial omics is a plus.

Strong communication skills including writing, publishing, and presenting research at journal articles and conferences; proven track record of publishing in peer-reviewed journals as major author; willingness to collaborate in a multidisciplinary research environment.

The PI:

 Dr. Yi Zhang is an Assistant Professor at Duke University and computational biologist. Dr. Zhang obtained PhD in Bioengineering in 2019 at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received postdoctoral training at Department of Data Science, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard University, with Dr. Xiaole Shirley Liu. She is faculty in the Department of Neurosurgery and in the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, affiliated with Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Cell Biology, Duke Cancer Institute, and Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center of Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Zhang has led computational methodology development work published at Nature Communications, Genome Biology, Bioinformatics, Cancer Research, etc. with publications in top-tier journals including Cell, Blood, Cancer Discovery, Nature Machine Intelligence, Nature Protocols, etc. She is recipient of awards including 2022 EECS Rising Star and Emerging Scholars in Genomics at UVA, and served at international Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) RSGDREAM as program committee.

Collaborator PI:

Dr. Tianlong Chen starts as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Fall 2024. He received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University of Texas at Austin, TX, USA, in 2023. His research focuses on building accurate, trustworthy, and efficient machine learning systems. Hereceived Amazon Research Award (Fall 2024 and Spring 2025), Cisco Faculty Award (2024 and 2025), AAAI'25 New Faculty Highlights, NAIRR Pilot Award, UNC Accelerating AI Award, CPAL Rising Star, AdvML Rising Star, OpenAI Researcher Access Award, Gemma Academic Program GCP Credit Award, IBM Ph.D. Fellowship, Adobe Ph.D. Fellowship, Graduate Dean's Prestigious Fellowship, Low-Resource Methods for NLP SAC Award at NAACL 2025, the Best Paper Award at LoG 2022, Marco Ramoni Distinguished Paper Award at AMIA-IS 2025, the Best Paper Award at GenAI4Health at AAAI 2025, Best Demo Paper Award at GenAI4Health at NeurIPS 2024, and the Best Paper Runners-Up Award at Medicine and Healthcare Bridge at AAAI'25.