Vacancy: Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Quantitative Research Methods

Centre for Social Science Research (CSSR) seeks to recruit a post-doctoral research fellow to focus on quantitative research methods. The CSSR is an interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Cape Town dedicated to conducting and building capacity for systematic, policy-relevant social science research in South Africa, the region and across Africa. Our teams work on translating mixed-methods multi-disciplinary research evidence into programmatic recommendations, and cost-effectiveness, cost- benefit and investment cases for potential interventions and combinations of interventions that improve the lives of adolescents and young people. We welcome applications from participants with experience in innovative approaches and enthusiasm for these shared research and advocacy goals.

This fellow will support a team with the unified goal of promoting high-quality evidence to improve the lives of adolescents in resource-limited settings. The postdoctoral fellowship will contribute by conducting quantitative analyses and providing methodological support, mentoring and advice to early career researchers conducting quantitative analyses at the CSSR, other departments at the University of Cape Town, and our partners at the University of Oxford. The fellow will also support two quantitative cohort studies led by A/Prof Elona Toska (CSSR, UCT) and Prof Lucie Cluver (Oxford University).

Conditions of Award:

Eligible applicants must have completed their doctorate within the past 5 years, and may not previously have held full-time permanent professional or academic posts.

The successful candidate will have:

• A doctorate in public health or a social science, including health economics
• Experience conducting quantitative statistical methods to cross-sectional and longitudinal data from low- and middle-income countries; using software packages (Stata and R are preferred); • Conducted quantitative research on adolescent health or HIV prevention in lower- and middle- income countries, including experience in data collection in sub-Saharan African countries;
• Published first-authored and co-authored papers in peer-reviewed publications of their field;
• Presented at conferences, seminars, and/or workshops ;
• The ability and willingness to teach and mentor quantitative methods;
• Experience working effectively as part of a team; and
• The ability to travel for work.

The successful candidate will be required to complete the following research deliverables:

• Plan and conduct quantitative data analyses on topics agreed with their advisor(s); •
• Conduct literature reviews on topics related to research;
• Support data cleaning and data management (as needed);
• Support quantitative data collection for existing studies in South Africa and neighbouring countries;
• Provide quantitative capacity-building support to early career researchers;
• Prepare and edit study protocols and ethical approval packages (as needed);
• Present analyses at seminars, workshops and conferences; and
• Prepare research findings for publication in peer-reviewed journals.

Advantageous skills/experience include if the applicant has:

• Led quantitative research with adolescents and young people, including adolescent girls and young women;
• Experience conducting advanced quantitative data analyses using R or MPlus;
• Experience working on analyses of multiple databases or conducting meta-analyses;
• Previous experience conducting costing, cost-effectiveness or similar economic evaluation;
• The ability to communicate technical research considerations to policymakers in a non-technical manner;
• Published papers from their PhD, and/or
• Convened courses/supervised students.

The candidate will be supervised by A/ Prof Elona Toska and mentored by a team of senior researchers, including Prof Lucie Cluver.

For more details and the application procedure, please download the job description.