Job Description

Salary

For a PDRA, the starting salary will be from 34,610 on Grade E, depending on qualifications and experience.
For a PDRF, the starting salary will be from 43,482 on Grade F, depending on qualifications and experience.

Contractual hours

36.5

Package

Generous holiday allowances, flexible working, pension scheme and relocation package (if applicable).

Job category/type

Research

Date posted

04/11/2025

Job reference

Q10823

Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy

The above full-time (1.0FTE) post is available from 5th January 2026 (flexible start date) until 4th January 2029, on a fixed-term basis within the Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy.

This role offers the opportunity for hybrid working - some time on campus and some from home.

The post

The Faculty wishes to recruit a Postdoctoral Research Associate/Fellow to participate in a project to study immune response in neurodegenerative disease. Immune responses play a critical role in the onset and progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. However, the mechanisms underlying these responses remain unclear, including the stages at which they are protective or detrimental, and whether shared mechanisms exist across the diseases.

The postdoctoral position is part of a large-scale collaborative research project involving, among others, the University of Exeter, Open Targets, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, EMBL-EBI, and the University of Oxford. The project aims to optimise and utilise cellular model systems, gene editing, and single-cell transcriptomic and spatial approaches to better understand immune responses in neurodegeneration.

The postdoctoral researcher will join a data science team at the University of Exeter that focuses on data analysis and experimental design for genome editing experiments and single-cell transcriptomic/spatial datasets.

This is a fixed term position for 3 years, with flexible start date between 01/2026 and 05/2026.

About you

Applicants will hold a PhD or equivalent qualification/experience in statistics, bioinformatics, computer science, computational biology, genomics, or a related discipline. They will have experience applying statistics and/or machine learning to biological or medical research questions, ideally including the analysis of omics datasets.

Proficiency in R and Python, as well as experience using high-performance computing clusters, is essential. The successful applicant will demonstrate the ability to work effectively in a collaborative, interdisciplinary environment, engaging with both computational and experimental researchers.

Experience in analysing single-cell omics datasets would be an advantage. This position offers an exciting opportunity to contribute to high-impact biomedical research in close collaboration with experimental groups and partners across academia and industry.

Please ensure you read the and Person Specification for full details of this role.

The successful applicant will be able to make presentations at conferences and other events.

The University of Exeter

We are a member of the prestigious Russell Group of research-intensive universities and in the top 200 universities in the world (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024 and QS World University Ranking 2024). We combine world-class teaching with world-class research, achieving a Gold rating in the Teaching Excellence Framework Award 2023, underpinned by Gold ratings for Student Experience and Student Outcomes.

Our world-leading research impact has grown more than any other Russell Group university in recent years, and we are home to some of the world's most influential researchers, seeking to answer some of the most fundamental issues facing humankind today. More than 99 percent of our research is of international quality and 47 percent is world-leading (2021 Research Excellence Framework).

We encourage proactive engagement with industry, business and community partners to enhance the impact of research and education and improve the employability of our students. Read about our world leading research - Green Futures and how we are transforming education for a changing world. We are located in a beautiful part of the country and Exeter (a fast growing tech hub) is one of only a few UK cities to have been designated as a UNESCO Creative City

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Commitment

We are committed to ensuring reasonable adjustments are available for interviews and workplaces.

Whilst all applicants will be judged on merit alone, we particularly welcome applications from groups currently underrepresented within our working community.

With over 30,000 students and 7,000 staff from 150 different countries we offer a diverse and engaging environment where our diversity is celebrated and valued as a major strength. We are committed to creating an inclusive culture where all members of our community are supported to thrive; where diverse voices are heard through our engagement with evidence-based charter frameworks for gender (Athena SWAN and Project Juno for Physics), race equality (Race Equality Charter Mark), LGBTQ+ inclusion (Stonewall Diversity Champion) and as a Disability Confident employer.

We are proud signatories of the Armed Forces Covenant and welcome applications from service people.

Further information

Informal enquiries are encouraged. For further information please contact Dr Magdalena Strauss, e-mail m.strauss@exeter.ac.uk.

The closing date for completed applications is 1/12/2025. Interviews (online) are expected to take place in December.