Call for postdoc candidates interested in applying for an MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship in Epidemiology

UiT The Arctic University of Norway has established «The Arctic MSCA-PF program» (uit.no/project/arcticmsca) to recruit excellent young researchers planning to apply for a Marie Skƚodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA-PF) to pursue a career in research. We invite applications from promising young researchers within the field of Epidemiology. The selected candidate will write a proposal for a 24-month MSCA-PF at UiT together with Associate Professor Karina Standahl Olsen. This is an opportunity to accelerate your research career while living in the urban research city of Tromsø, uniquely located at the top of the world surrounded by some of Europe’s last pristine wild nature.

This call is one of 70 from pre-selected supervisors at UiT The Arctic University of Norway through the “Arctic MSCA-PF program”. Successful postdoc candidates will be invited for a three-day MSCA-PF symposium June 4-6, 2024 (hybrid physical/digital event, see details at uit.no/project/arcticmsca/program-structure). At this event, the candidates will present their past research achievements, discuss future plans with their potential supervisor and learn how to write a successful MSCA-PF application. The selected candidates will, jointly with the supervisor, write the MSCA-PF application by the deadline of September 11, 2024.

In this call we search for talented, young researchers within the field of Epidemiology as presented by Associate Professor Olsen:

Breast, ovarian, and endometrial cancers share notable similarities in their underlying molecular mechanisms and hormonal etiology. These malignancies, predominantly affecting women, have demonstrated significant interplay between genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors in their development and progression.  A medication or a combination of medications may have adverse or beneficial effects on the development of cancer, and much is still unknown about the link between medication use and cancer risk. The validity of the studies published to date on this topic is generally limited due to the choice of analytical methods, limited sample size, self-reported data on medication use, lack of data on cancer subtypes or comorbidities, and/or other methodological limitations such as time-related biases. We propose a modern methodological approach including causal modeling combined with high-quality cohort and registry data, to address these challenges. The Norwegian prescription database (NorPD) gives detailed information on medication dispensation and duration of use. Pooled data from a Norwegian and a French cohort will provide a study sample large enough to explore in detail the associations between the use of medication and the aforementioned cancers and their subtypes. The research team has extensive experience in epidemiological, pharmaco-epidemiological, and statistical methodology, as well as population-based cohort studies. 

Please send your CV (max 3 pages) and describe a research project that will strengthen and complement the presented research (max 2 pages) to karina.s.olsen@uit.no by Feb 16th 2024. Mark your application "Arctic MSCA". Successful candidates will be contacted in late March 2024.