Faculty Positions Department of Epidemiology, focus of Healthy Aging

The Epidemiology Department at the Boston University School of Public Health invites applications for an open rank position in epidemiology focused on the life course determinants of health outcomes among older adults and their social networks. This position is part of BU’s major investment in convergent research, bringing together bold ideas, deep expertise, and perspectives from across disciplines to take on society’s most critical challenges.

The ideal candidate will have strong methods, including for example computational methods, modern causal inference approaches, and data-intensive tools. The applied focus of this position is investigating how life-course and social factors shape health outcomes among older adults, their families and care networks, and health care systems. We are especially interested in strengthening departmental expertise in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias or cardiovascular or cerebrovascular outcomes.

Potential areas of focus include new methods for integrating data across the life course and social networks, evaluating emerging treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, or applying causal inference methods to identify scalable personal, clinical, systems, or policy interventions that improve healthy aging and the health of those who support older adults. Ability to teach core and/or advanced epidemiology methods is important as well as a track record (appropriate to career stage) of interdisciplinary collaborations.

Candidates will be expected to have demonstrated success securing external funding, likelihood of sustaining an externally funded research portfolio, and evidence of capacity to effectively mentor and support trainees applying for career development awards.

This cluster hire builds on BU’s strength in Health Across the Lifespan, an area of significant expertise and opportunity across the University.

BU is home to renowned studies of aging including the Framingham Heart Study and New England Centenarian Study, as well as innovative interdisciplinary research centers focused on the demography and economics of population aging, Triangulation of Innovative Methods to End Alzheimer’s Disease (TIME-AD), an Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias Research Center, the biology of aging, and more.

The Future of Healthy Aging draws on this foundation, bringing together faculty from anthropology, biology, business, communications, epidemiology, law, physical therapy, sociology, medicine, dentistry, and surgery to pursue transformative research questions about how we age and the biological, cultural, environmental, technological, legal, and social factors that shape healthy aging as well as the structural factors that prevent some from aging well.

The cluster hire will add new ideas, methods, and perspectives to this work, connecting fundamental discovery, population health, and translational research to advance healthier aging across the life course and to meet the challenges of an aging global population.

The Department of Epidemiology is a leader in population health research, dedicated to understanding the causes, distribution, and prevention of disease and promotion of health across the lifespan. Faculty conduct innovative research spanning chronic and infectious diseases, aging, brain health, cardiovascular health, cancer, environmental and social determinants of health, health disparities, and the translation of scientific evidence into effective public health interventions.

Through rigorous methodological, clinical, and population-based research, the department seeks to identify the factors that promote health, resilience, and longevity in diverse populations.

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