Research Data Analyst in Global Infectious Disease Epidemiology

Research Data Analyst in Global Infectious Disease Epidemiology Department and Project Overview

The Planetary Child Health & Enterics Observatory ( Plan-EO ) is an interdisciplinary research initiative and living evidence system based at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and founded and coordinated by Dr. Josh Colston. Plan-EO works to systematically model, quantify, predict, and project the epidemiology and burden of enteric infectious diseases and their risk factors across low-resource regions of the world.

The initiative makes its findings freely available to researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders. The Plan-EO team integrates epidemiological data from broad-spectrum molecular diagnostics with climate and environmental data derived from Earth-observation satellites, nationally representative household surveys, and other sources. The team brings together expertise in epidemiology, hydrology, bioinformatics, software and systems engineering, knowledge management, and communications. Plan-EO is a member of the SPRINGS Project, an international research consortium supported by the European Union’s Horizon Europe program.

The initiative has also received supplementary funding to estimate and project diarrheal disease burden and etiologies.

The University of Virginia School of Medicine seeks a Research Data Analyst to help advance Plan-EO’s research on climate-sensitive infectious diseases in tropical and subtropical regions. This position will play an important scientific and operational leadership role within Plan-EO. The Research Data Analyst will contribute to statistical analysis, data integration, scientific writing, knowledge management, grant development, and the coordination of interdisciplinary research collaborations.

The position will also help oversee daily project activities, allowing senior leadership to focus on strategic direction and scientific oversight. The successful candidate will be a highly motivated and collaborative professional who combines analytical rigor and careful attention to detail with strong communication, organizational, and relationship-building skills. The individual must be comfortable working across disciplines, collaborating equitably with international partners, mentoring junior researchers, and representing Plan-EO at conferences and stakeholder meetings.

• Collaborate with the research team throughout the scientific research cycle, including exploratory analysis, scoping and evidence reviews, statistical modeling, manuscript preparation, peer review, and dissemination.
• Analyze and interpret complex epidemiological, environmental, and health-related datasets.
• Contribute to scientific manuscripts, reports, presentations, and other research products.
• Translate technical findings into clear and engaging information for scientific, policy, and public audiences.

• Develop, document, and oversee standardized data-processing systems and reproducible research workflows.
• Coordinate back-end data management within the project’s secure, shared computing environment.
• Partner with UVA software developers to support the development and deployment of Plan-EO’s interactive online dashboard.
• Promote consistent data-management, quality-control, documentation, and version-control practices across the project.

• Help maintain Plan-EO as a current and accessible living evidence system.
• Organize and manage the project’s scientific resources, datasets, documentation, analytical products, and institutional knowledge.
• Establish processes that support effective collaboration and information sharing across an interdisciplinary and geographically distributed team.

• Collaborate respectfully and equitably with international research partners.
• Support the responsible conduct of research and the appropriate stewardship of data contributed by studies and participants in low- and middle-income countries.
• Help ensure compliance with applicable research protocols, data-use agreements, privacy requirements, and ethical standards.