Missions

As part of an ANR-funded project (VIRADAPT), we want to gain a better understanding of how pathogens adapt to vaccines and host immunity in order to understand adaptation of SARS-CoV-2 in the first few years of the pandemic, develop new methods for characterising the phenotypes of variants and identify the most sustainable vaccine strategies.

We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher to develop mathematical models in evolutionary epidemiology. The models will describe the heterogeneous host population (naïve, naturally immunised or vaccinated) and several SARS-CoV-2 variants. The model will be informed by, and fitted to, exceptional data on the infection and immunity status of millions of individuals in the UK in the first three years of the pandemic. SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequences may also be analyzed to infer the spatial dynamics of several variants of the virus in the UK.

Activités

- Develop and analyse mathematical models
- Develop stochastic simulation models to monitor epidemiological and evolutionary dynamics
- Clean and analyze epidemiological data (infection and immunity status)
- Fit mathematical models to these data
- Optional: Analyze genomic data (phylogeography)
- Present results at scientific conferences
- Write scientific publications to communicate results

Compétences

- Experience in developing and analysing epidemiological models
- Experience in analyzing data / statistical modelling
- Ability to work as part of a team and to communicate results through oral communications and publications

Contexte de travail

The postdoctoral fellow will be based in the center of Paris (Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology, UMR CNRS 7241, Collège de France), in a unit specialised in mathematical models to study evolution. S.he will work on the project with colleagues in Montpellier (including another postdoctoral researcher hired on the same project) and University of Oxford. The postdoctoral fellow will travel regularly to University of Oxford.

Contraintes et risques

The research project does not require any experimentation, fieldwork or handling, and consists of modelling work housed in the CIRB unit, Collège de France. There are no specific safety issues, apart from the risks, particularly musculoskeletal, inherent in working on a computer.