Job Description

Job number

NAT02101

Faculties

Faculty of Natural Sciences

Departments

Department of Mathematics

Salary or Salary range

49,017 - 57,472 per annum

Location/campus

South Kensington Campus - Hybrid

Contract type work pattern

Full time - Fixed term

Posting End Date

9 Dec 2025

About the role

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We are seeking to appoint a postdoctoral research associate in Machine Learning and Chemometrics for Antimicrobial Resistance for 18 months.

What you would be doing

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The successful candidate will carry out research on computational modelling to determine physicochemical properties of small molecules with the aim of understanding/predicting their bacterial uptake. For this, the successful candidate will initially develop workflows to automate quantum mechanical calculations (DFT), and calculations of dynamical and conformational properties of libraries of potential drugs and correlate these properties to known and newly acquired experimental data. These calculations, complemented with chemoinformatic studies, will be used to subsequently develop machine learning algorithms to predict these properties and ultimately estimate the chances of a given molecule to be taken up by bacteria.



The candidate will be expected to produce independent and original research, to submit project reports and publications to refereed journals, attend project meetings with other project partners, collaborate with other scientists, both experimental and theoretical, participate in the development and refinement of experimental and theoretical protocols for data analysis, data collection, computation and hypothesis generation, and help with teaching and administration of the research group.

What we are looking for

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The post-holder will be self-motivated and capable of carrying out a complex and collaborative research project as part of a larger research team. Collaboration with colleagues with other Departments in the College, specifically in Chemistry, Life Sciences and Computing, as well as externally is crucially important and consequently project management and communication skills are particularly essential.



This post will require an essential knowledge of chemistry, biochemistry, chemometrics and their interface with Machine Learning, and will interact with other posts in the team (to be advertised separately) which will be concentrated on data production, experiments and novel machine learning algorithms.



You will be a motivated PhD in Chemistry with specialisation or equivalent research or industrial experience in digital chemistry, chemometrics and experimentation. Deep interest in cross-disciplinary applications and methodologies is a must. Computational and coding abilities for chemistry computations and machine learning applications in Chemistry are required.



The essential requirements for this post are as follows:


Hold a PhD (or equivalent) in Chemistry Experience in Medicinal and synthetic chemistry Knowledge of packages to perform computational modelling of chemical and molecular properties Experience with high-throughput computational workflows including databases and interface with experimental data generation Experience with machine learning methods for chemistry and drug design Experience with coding pipelines that bridge machine learning and computational molecular methods Knowledge of biochemistry and cellular biology of bacterial processes Excellent verbal communication skills and the ability to deal with a wide range of people Ability to develop and apply new concepts

What we can offer you

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The opportunity to continue your career at a world-leading institution and be part of our mission to continue science for humanity. Grow your career: gain access to Imperial's sector-leading dedicated career support for researchers as well as opportunities for promotion and progression. Sector-leading salary and remuneration package (including 41 days off a year and generous pension schemes). Be part of a diverse, inclusive and collaborative work culture with various staff networks and resources to support your personal and professional wellbeing.

Further information

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More information about the Department of Mathematics, the Applied Mathematics and Mathematical Physics Section, as well as staff benefits that we offer can be found on the linked webpages.



This post is available for up to 18 months, commencing as soon as possible.



Queries relating to the position should be directed to Prof Mauricio Barahona (m.barahona@imperial.ac.uk) and Prof Ramon Vilar (r.vilar@imperial.ac.uk)

Available documents

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Attached documents are available under links. Clicking a document link will initialize its download.

Please note that job descriptions are not exhaustive, and you may be asked to take on additional duties that align with the key responsibilities mentioned above.

We reserve the right to close the advert prior to the closing date stated should we receive a high volume of applications. It is therefore advisable that you submit your application as early as possible to avoid disappointment.



If you encounter any technical issues while applying online, please don't hesitate to email us at support.jobs@imperial.ac.uk. We're here to help.

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