Modern (molecular) biology rests on the generation, sharing and integrated analysis of digital data. Connecting the large amounts of digital life-science data, fosters innovation allowing to address major societal challenges. The ELIXIR Belgium projects will facilitate the reproducible analysis of life-science data. In collaboration with the Flemish Supercomputer Center (VSC, https://www.vscentrum.be) which is building a Flemish Cloud infrastructure, we will develop and maintain services-on-top targeted to life-science researchers. We will deploy different approaches, targeted at both biologists and bioinformaticians. At VIB, we have experience deploying Galaxy and will provide this for all Flemish researchers (https://usegalaxy.be). To provide more flexibility, we plan to deploy the Genomics Virtual Laboratory (https://www.gvl.org.au) and a container-focussed platform (e.g. Kubernetes). This will be performed in close collaboration with experts in ELIXIR, VSC and the ELIXIR Belgium team.
As a Scientific Cloud Coordinator, you
- will be responsible to set up and maintain services for data analysis (such as Galaxy, GVL and a container based platform) on top of the Cloud infrastructure of the Flemish Supercomputer Center (VSC),
- will collaborate closely with developers in the ELIXIR Belgium team, as well as with the supercomputer experts at VSC
- will be responsible for the alignment of these services with the requirements of the end-users,
- will optimally align these data analysis platforms with the deployed solutions for research data management,
- will follow-up on the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) activities.
Profile
Essential
- Master or PhD degree in Bioinformatics, Bioscience engineering, Computational Biology, Computational Science or equivalent
- Experience in bioinformatics, life-science research and data-intensive analysis is a must
- Experience with Linux/Unix environments and BASH scripting
- Usable programming experience with scripting languages such as Python or Perl
- Proven experience of collaborative research, research management and project management skills
- Strong problem solving and interpersonal skills are required
- Ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing in English
- Positive and enthusiastic personality
- Able to meet deadlines and manage priorities to handle a diverse workload
Desirable but not required
- Hands-on experience with HPC and Cloud environments is a plus
- Experience with (some of) the mentioned platforms or technologies is an asset
We offer
- A fulltime position for 2 years initially. This is part of the long-term strategy for funding research infrastructures in Flanders, therefore prolongation is envisaged pending on the successful renewal of the national project.
- Participation in the building of a future-proof, user-friendly ecosystem of platforms for data management and data analysis open to all researchers
- An exciting international environment, engaging with the large life-sciences network across Europe of ELIXIR
- Work place is the VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology (Ghent, Belgium)
About the institute and research infrastructure
The ELIXIR consortium (https://www.elixir-europe.org) is a European research infrastructure which unites life-science research groups. It coordinates, integrates and sustains bioinformatics resources from the different member states.
The VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology (PSB, https://www.psb.ugent.be) is a world-leading plant science institute with the mission to integrate genetics, genomics, phenotyping and bio-computing to unravel the biology of plants and to further explore the potential of plants to build a sustainable world.
The bioinformatics research groups at PSB develop novel software and web tools for the integration of large-scale data sets in the area of genomics, transcriptomics and phenomics for which an extensive computational infrastructure is available on site. PSB coordinates the Belgian ELIXIR Node, more information on https://www.elixir-belgium.org.
