Public Health Program Associate (Exposomics Research) - Rollins School of Public Health
- Full Time
About the role
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Emory University is a leading research university that fosters excellence and attracts world-class talent to innovate today and prepare leaders for the future. We welcome candidates who can contribute to the excellence of our academic community.Description
Our laboratory is located within the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. Rollins is ranked No. 2 among schools and programs of public health by U.S.News & World Report (2026) and No. 4 among schools of public health in NIH funding (Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research, 2025). The Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health houses researchers with interests spanning mechanistic and computational toxicology, genomics, the developmental origins of disease, airpollution, climate change, water, sanitation and hygiene, and environmental epidemiology. Within the department is Emory’s HERCULES Exposome Research Center, an NIEHS P30 Environmental Health Sciences Core Center and the first exposome research center in the US. The department’s team-science approach providesopportunities to co-author publications with leading collaborators. We support career development through workshops on the exposome, mass spectrometry, and analytical chemistry, and through travel to national and international conferences. Work-related experience will be considered in determining level and salary.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:
- Under limited supervision, uses a basic knowledge of public health principles to analyze, develop, implement, and promote new and creative strategies and solutions to address public health issues and challenges.
- Addresses public health issues by providing education, technical assistance, advocacy, public awareness, and research.
- Works with programs or studies designed to evaluate the prevalence or surveillance of public health issues and the effectiveness of targeted interventions.
- May provide technical assistance to organizations to include presentations, web-based resources, strategies, and educational forums to address specific public health issues.
- May work with clinical study sites on patient recruitment and data collection standards. Assists with data collection and data analysis.
- Contributes to proposals, protocols, data analysis plans, reports, manuscripts, and presentation of study findings.
- May assist in designing, developing, and conducting targeted training initiatives.
- May collaborate with external organizations to develop action plans and goals to achieve specific objectives.
- Performs related responsibilities as required.
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:
- A master's degree in Public Health, a master of science degree in Public Health or Health Education, OR a master's degree in Development Practice OR a master's degree in another field and one year of public health experience.
ADDITIONAL JOB DETAILS:
The Comprehensive Laboratory for Untargeted Exposome Science (CLUES) in the Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health at Emory University seeks applications for a Public Health Program Associate to lead the laboratory’s gas chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry (GC-HRMS) team. CLUES measures environmental chemicals, micro- and nanoplastics, and metabolites in human biofluids, tissues, and other matrices for large population studies of howexposures affect health. Our projects examine environmental contributors to cancer, neurodevelopmental outcomes, and metabolic disease, and develop methods tomeasure exposures of emerging concern, including microplastics, PFAS, and persistent organic pollutants.Working under limited supervision from the laboratory director, the Program Associate will oversee daily GC-HRMS research operations, including pyrolysis GC-HRMS methods for micro- and nanoplastics. They will apply public health and exposure science principles to develop and carry out analytical strategies for collaborating studies, help collect, analyze, and report study data, and train new team members. The position includes regular work with collaborating study teams on sample collection standards and on the interpretation and presentation of results. The facility houses five LC-HRMS systems (Thermo Orbitrap Exploris 120) and two GC-HRMS systems (Thermo Orbitrap Exploris GC and Exploris GC 240), each with a Frontier pyrolysis and autosampler system.
Responsibilities include:
- Lead day-to-day operation of the GC-HRMS team, including scheduling, sample preparation, instrument runs, and tracking of project timelines.
- Prepare and analyze biological and environmental samples by GC-HRMS and pyrolysis GC-HRMS.
- Oversee daily instrument performance checks and QA/QC, and troubleshoot when results do not meet pass/fail criteria.
- Develop, verify, and optimize GC-HRMS methods, including setting assay suitability criteria.
- Process, analyze, and summarize targeted and untargeted GC-HRMS data, and report results to the laboratory director and study teams.
- Work with collaborating study sites on standards for sample collection, storage, and shipment, including contamination control for micro- and nanoplastic analyses.
- Provide technical assistance to collaborating research groups and organizations through presentations, written protocols, web-based resources, and consultation onstudy design.
- Design and deliver training for new laboratory members and students on GC-HRMS methods, data processing, and laboratory safety.
- Contribute to grant proposals, study protocols, data analysis plans, reports, manuscripts, and presentations of study findings.
- Coordinate with external collaborators to set project plans, goals, and timelines.
- Maintain laboratory safety procedures and the receipt, cataloging, and inventory of samples for GC-HRMS projects.
- Provide weekly updates on study progress to the laboratory director.
- Perform related responsibilities as required.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- Hands-on experience with GC-MS or GC-HRMS, including sample preparation, instrument operation, and routine maintenance.
- Experience developing or validating analytical methods for environmental chemicals in biological samples.
- Experience processing mass spectrometry data and working in R, Python, or another scripting language.
- Experience training or supervising laboratory staff or students.
- Familiarity with exposure assessment, biomonitoring, or environmental epidemiology.
Knowledge/Skills:
The ideal candidate pays close attention to detail, communicates clearly in writing and in person, has strong quantitative laboratory skills, and follows good laboratory practices. They should be well organized, manage time well, and meet project timelines independently. Candidates who are eager to learn and highly organized are encouraged to apply even if they do not meet every preferred qualification.
NOTE: Position tasks are required to be performed in-person at an Emory University location; working remote is not an option. Emory reserves the right to change this status with notice to employee.