Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics
We invite applications for a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Mathematical and Statistical Methods for Genome Privacy in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. The successful candidate will join the research group of Dr Gamze Gursoy and work on developing new mathematical and computational methods for privacy-preserving human pangenome references.
Human pangenome references provide increasingly rich representations of human genetic diversity, but their scale and structure also raise important questions about how information contributed by individuals can be protected. This project will develop new approaches at the intersection of graph algorithms, statistical methodology, optimization, privacy, and computational genomics, with the broader goal of enabling useful population-scale genomic references while limiting disclosure of sensitive information about the individuals represented within them.
Depending on the successful candidate's interests and background, research directions may include differentially private construction and analysis of pangenome graphs, privacy-aware graph algorithms and representations, statistical characterization of privacy-utility trade-offs, optimization of algorithms for large genomic graphs, and development and benchmarking of methods on human pangenome data. There will be considerable freedom for the successful candidate to help shape the scientific direction of the project.
We are particularly interested in candidates with a strong background in one or more of the following areas:
- statistics;
- graph theory or graph algorithms;
- mathematical or numerical optimization;
- differential privacy or related areas of data privacy;
- algorithms and theoretical computer science;
- computational genomics, bioinformatics, or pangenomics.