PhD Position Opening – Real-Time Sepsis Research Dashboard

Project Description

Position Overview
The Canadian Clinical Research Network (CCRN) invites applications for a PhD candidate position as part of an international project to build a real-time research dashboard for multicenter clinical trials in sepsis, a flagship initiative of the future Lancet Commission on Sepsis.
The selected candidate will lead the scientific, methodological, and data-curation components of this 12-month, CAD 150,000 project, under the supervision of senior investigators and in close collaboration with web developers, communications specialists, and the Lancet Commission secretariat.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute systematic searches of international clinical trial registries (ClinicalTrials.gov, EUCTR, WHO ICTRP, etc.)
• Extract, clean, and harmonize trial metadata for large multicenter sepsis studies
• Build and maintain a PICO-based ontology for classifying trials
• Collaborate with software engineers to design the dashboard’s data model and interface
• Engage with international trial investigators to obtain granular enrollment data and biospecimen metadata
• Contribute to knowledge-translation and dissemination outputs (reports, presentations, academic papers)
• Participate in the evaluation and continuous improvement of the dashboard

Required Background Training
Candidates should hold a master’s degree (or equivalent) in one or more of the following areas:
• Epidemiology, biostatistics, or health services research
• Information science or library and archival studies (with experience in systematic searching)
• Biomedical informatics or data science
• Implementation science, global health, or public health
• Clinical medicine, nursing, or allied health (with research experience)

Desirable Skills and Aptitude

• Strong understanding of evidence-based medicine and clinical trial design
• Experience with systematic reviews or registry-based data extraction
• Familiarity with data visualization, R/Python, or dashboard development tools (e.g., Shiny, Tableau)
• Excellent written and verbal communication in English (French proficiency an asset)
• Capacity for interdisciplinary teamwork, stakeholder engagement, and integrated knowledge translation
• Analytical rigor, autonomy, and curiosity for open-science and research-transparency issues
• Interest in global health equity, critical care, and modernization of research infrastructure

Duration and Supervision
Full-time, 12 months (renewable depending on progress and funding).
Supervision will be provided jointly by senior investigators affiliated with CCRN and academic partners across Canada and internationally.

Funding offered

Yes

The last update was on 14 November 2025. The University reserves the right to modify its projects without notice.