PhD POSITIONS IN MEDICAL STATISTICS Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

CENTER FOR MEDICAL STATISTICS, INFORMATICS, AND INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS SECTION FOR MEDICAL STATISTICS


PhD POSITIONS IN MEDICAL STATISTICS
Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

The Section of Medical Statistics at the Medical University of Vienna invites applications for several funded PhD-positions in Medical Statistics to be filled between October 2013 and February 2014. We seek junior researchers with a strong background in statistics, mathematics or related fields who would like to gain research experience as part of an innovative research group in medical statistics.

Information about the PhD projects
The PhD positions are funded by the FP7-health-programme of the European Union on “new methodologies for clinical trials for small population groups” (HEALTH.2013.4.2-3). The development of safe and efficacious treatments in rare diseases as well as personalized medicine faces specific challenges because of the limited number of subjects that can be included in clinical trials. The objective of the projects is to develop innovative statistical methods for the design and analysis of clinical trials that make the best use of the available resources. Research questions to be addressed include
• How to efficiently design adaptive clinical trials in small patient populations?
• How to use multivariate outcomes for efficient decision making?
• How to combine data from different sources?
• Exploration of frequentist and Bayesian approaches for dose finding and development of targeted therapies.
PhD students will be supervised by the local project leaders Martin Posch and Franz König. Further project collaborators include Peter Bauer and other staff members at the department as well as international partners in the EU FP7 projects from several European universities, regulatory authorities and industry partners.

Information on the Department
The PhD students will be integrated in the working group “Adaptive Designs” at the Section of Medical Statistics. The department is part of the Center for Medical Statistics, Informatics, and Intelligent Systems (CeMSIIS) at the Medical University of Vienna. It is located in the centre of Vienna and can easily be reached by public transport. The department has a long standing research tradition with an outstanding track record in methodological, biostatistical research including areas as adaptive designs, multiple testing, or large scale data analysis in bioinformatics. Furthermore, the Section of Medical Statistics is involved in the design and analysis of clinical trials in collaboration with physicians running studies at the university hospital.
The Section of Medical Statistics provides statistics courses for the medical curriculum of the Medical University of Vienna and contributes to the PhD-programme “Medical Informatics, Biostatistics and Complex Systems”.

Major responsibilities
As a PhD student, your work will be embedded in an international research group benefiting from intensive interactions between junior and senior researchers. Two dedicated supervisors shall ensure delivery of the project in time. Your main responsibility as a PhD student is to pursue your own PhD studies. You are expected to develop statistical methods and software (likely in R or SAS) for the design and analysis of clinical trials, as well as to communicate your results at scientific conferences and in scientific publications.





Spitalgasse 23 • A-1090 Vienna
Phone +43 1 40400-7489
medstat@meduniwien.ac.at • http://cemsiis.meduniwien.ac.at/ and www.meduniwien.ac.at/medstat







Position summary
The PhD salaries will be in line with the guideline of the Austrian science fund depending (see http://www.fwf.ac.at/de/projects/personalkostensaetze.html ). The PhD positions are to be filled between October 2013 to February 2014

Qualifications

The PhD positions require
• strong background in statistics, mathematics or a related field,
• interest to develop innovative statistical methods,
• very good programming skills, e.g., in statistical software such as R or SAS,
• sound oral and written communication skills in English (knowledge of German is not required),
• willingness to collaborate across scientific and geographic borders.

To qualify as a PhD student at the Medical University of Vienna you should fulfill the admission criteria of the PhD programme at the Medical University of Vienna. A master in statistics, mathematics or related science is required. For further information see http://www.meduniwien.ac.at/studienabteilung/content/studium- lehre/studienangebot/n094/admission/ .

Application procedure:
Applications should be sent per email to medstat@meduniwien.ac.at including (all documents as PDF):
• CV, including a complete list of publications.
• Previous teaching and pedagogical experiences.
• Other, for example previous employments or leadership qualifications and positions of trust.
• Two references that we can contact.
• Personal letter/Qualifications 1-3 pages where you introduce yourself, present your qualifications, previous research fields, main research results, and future research plans.
• Copies of bachelor or master’s thesis.
• Copies of completed education, grades and other certificates.

Application period:
Starts with 8. August 2013 till all positions are filled. The first position should start in October. Please note that the applications will be processed continuously, so please submit your application as soon as possible. The Medical University of Vienna is an equal opportunity employer.

For informal inquires please contact
Franz König , franz.koenig@meduniwien.ac.at , +43-1-40400-7480
Martin Posch, martin.posch@meduniwien.ac.at, +43-1-40400-7489