Academic Research Scientist- School of Medicine, Pathology

Emory University is a leading research university that fosters excellence and attracts world-class talent to innovate today and prepare leaders for the future. We welcome candidates who can contribute to the excellence of our academic community.

The Sekaly Lab seeks a dynamic translational scientist with expertise in human immunology, immunogenomics, single-cell multi-omics, immune profiling, and assay development. The successful candidate will lead the design, optimization, and application of advanced experimental and computational workflows to uncover mechanisms of immune regulation, antiviral immunity, vaccine responses, cancer immunology, and disease pathogenesis. This role will integrate experimental immunology, single-cell multi-omics, functional assays, and computational/AI approaches to advance the lab’s systems biology and translational research programs.

The Academic Research Scientist functions as a highly skilled contributor/researcher and has significant authorship on publications and advanced knowledge and expertise of laboratory and experimental platforms necessary to advance basic and/or translational research programs.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Staff Scientists will have leadership responsibilities, and will oversee quality and training of other team members.
• Duties include designing, developing and conducting research experiments.
• Will have expert knowledge and skills specific to the related program and advanced knowledge of methods of analyzing data from experimental platforms.
• May assist in grant and other funding applications as necessary and appropriate, or with approval of the responsible faculty director, may have their own research projects and/or have full responsibilities for specific areas of a program.
• With the approval of the responsible Emory faculty director, the Academic Research Scientist may serve as the principal investigator on funded (grant) proposals.
• Performs other responsibilities as required.

ADDITIONAL JOB DETAILS:

• Lead development and implementation of integrated single-cell workflows, including scRNA-seq, CITE-seq, BCR/TCR sequencing, and scATAC-seq.
• Develop and optimize sample-processing, cell-isolation, sorting, fixation, and library-preparation workflows for high-quality multi-omic profiling.
• Evaluate, implement, and adapt emerging single-cell, spatial transcriptomics, sequencing, and immune-profiling technologies.
• Drive innovation in experimental platform development through hands‑on experimentation, optimization, troubleshooting, and strategic planning.
• Design and implement functional and mechanistic immune assays to validate findings from multi‑omics studies.
• Develop perturbation strategies using CRISPR/Cas9, lentiviral approaches, RNA‑based methods, or pharmacological modulation in collaboration with relevant specialists.
• Investigate immune‑cell activation, differentiation, exhaustion, memory, antigen specificity, and therapeutic responses using high‑dimensional approaches.
• Integrate single‑cell transcriptomics, immune‑receptor repertoires, phenotypic profiling, and functional assay data to identify mechanisms and biomarkers.
• Partner with computational scientists to analyze multi‑modal datasets and develop reproducible bioinformatics and AI/ML‑based analytical workflows.
• Work closely with academic, clinical, and industry collaborators to co‑develop novel assays, reagents, technologies, and translational research programs.
• Lead studies involving human clinical specimens and relevant preclinical models of HIV, cancer, infectious disease, and vaccine responses.
• Mentor postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, research scientists, and junior laboratory personnel.
• Contribute to scientific strategy, contribute in…