EPA Data Science Fellowship for the Endocrine Disruption Screening Program
Description
*Applications are reviewed on a rolling-basis and applications may close before the deadline.
EPA Office/Lab and Location: A research opportunity is currently available at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP), within the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP), located in Durham, North Carolina. You will receive training in the Research Triangle Park, NC campus and may be required to travel to Washington, DC once a year for debriefings.
The mission of EPA is to protect human health and the environment. EPA works to ensure that: Americans have clean air, land and water; National efforts to reduce environmental risks are based on the best available scientific information; Federal laws protecting human health and the environment are administered and enforced fairly, effectively and as Congress intended; Environmental stewardship is integral to U.S. policies concerning natural resources, human health, economic growth, energy, transportation, agriculture, industry, and international trade, and these factors are similarly considered in establishing environmental policy; All parts of society have access to accurate information sufficient to effectively participate in managing human health and environmental risks; Contaminated lands and toxic sites are cleaned up; and chemicals in the marketplace are reviewed for safety.
Research Project: You will gain experience in data management, analysis, and technical skills for coordinated research and informatics efforts supporting EDSP. The appointment will focus on data science activities related to toxicological and targeted bioactivity screening data as part of the US EPA Toxicity Forecaster (ToxCast) program, including model maintenance, productionizing research endpoints, development of R packages, software development, database curation, and quality evaluation of in vitro chemical screening data. Research activities may include acquiring domain knowledge in toxicology and chemistry; wrangling heterogeneous source formats into standard templates; conducting data analysis and curation using controlled vocabularies; performing database scripting; managing code libraries and documentation; identifying and correcting bugs; conducting user acceptance testing; developing automated tools for processing large volumes of data; and applying innovative data science solutions to support hazard identification, screening prioritization, risk assessment, and regulatory decision-making. You may also gain experience with the evaluations of the predictivity and precision of new approach methods (NAMs) relative to traditional animal testing.
Learning Objectives: Under the guidance of a mentor, you will learn how to:
- Design and implement reusable and scalable techniques for data management
- Organize or transform data in databases to support scientific analyses
- Analyze data quality according to specified criteria
- Write scripts and functions in R to support data migration and data curation software tools
- Develop and collaborate with others to evolve scientific applications into production level tools
- Create and interact with RESTful APIs to support scientific efforts
- Create proof of concept projects and adapting/maintaining code from other researchers
Other research activities may include:
- Gain experience being a part of an interdisciplinary team of software developers, data scientists, and subject-matter experts.
- Develop skills in creating clear, effective data visualizations to communicate results to stakeholders and technical audiences.
- Build proficiency in thoroughly documenting data, code, analytical methods, and procedures in accordance with EPA quality-assurance procedures, supporting transparency and reproducibility.
- Strengthen technical writing skills by drafting reports that describe complex datasets, data-processing methods, and data-manipulation procedures.
- Prepare internal reports and memoranda that communicate analytical research and findings for use by EPA scientists.
- Develop scientific communication experience through opportunities to present research at scientific conferences and contribute to peer-reviewed manuscripts.
Mentor(s): The mentors for this opportunity are Madison Feshuk (feshuk.madison@epa.gov) and Scott Lynn (lynn.scott@epa.gov). If you have questions about the nature of the research, please contact the mentor(s).
Anticipated Appointment Start Date: December 1, 2026. All start dates are flexible and vary depending on numerous factors.
Appointment Length: The appointment will initially be for one year and may be renewed three to four additional years upon EPA recommendation and subject to availability of funding.
Level of Participation: The appointment is full time.
Citizenship Requirements: This opportunity is available to U.S. citizens only.
EPA Security Clearance: Completion of a successful background investigation by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is required for an applicant to be on-boarded at EPA.
ORISE Information: This program, administered by ORAU through its contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to manage the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), was established through an interagency agreement between DOE and EPA. Participants do not become employees of EPA, DOE or the program administrator, and there are no employment-related benefits. Proof of health insurance is required for participation in this program. Health insurance can be obtained through ORISE.
ORISE offers all ORISE EPA graduate students and Postdocs a free 5 year membership to the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA).
The successful applicant(s) will be required to comply with Environmental, Safety and Health (ES&H) requirements of the hosting facility.
Questions: Please see the FAQ section of our website. If you have additional questions about the application process please email ORISE.EPA.OCSPP@orau.org and include the reference code for this opportunity.
Qualifications
The qualified candidate should have received a bachelor's or master's degree in one of the relevant fields (toxicology, environmental science, cell/molecular biology, biochemistry, or a closely related field of study). Degree must have been received within the past five years.
Preferred skills:
- Training or courses in statistics or computer programming
- Domain knowledge of biology or toxicology processes desired
- Strong reading comprehension skills and experience logically interpreting pieces of information from a variety of data source types
- Experience programming in the R language
- Experience utilizing R packages for code development and data analysis, such as devtools and tidyverse, desired
- Experience writing CRAN compliant R packages and/or functions desired
- Experience with relational databases, such as MySQL, PostGreSQL, or others
Stipend
$52,693.00 – $64,453.00 Yearly
Point of Contact
Eligibility Requirements
- Citizenship: U.S. Citizen Only
- Degree: Bachelor's Degree or Master's Degree received within the last 60 month(s).