PhD Graduate Fellow - Epidemiology, Agentic AI and Wastewater Genomic Surveillance

About the role

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in partnership with the Genomic Pathogen Analysis Platform (GPAP) at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), is recruiting a PhD Graduate Fellow (ref. ILRI PhD GF/Health/02/2026) for a 3-year fellowship hosted by ILRI’s Health program in Nairobi, Kenya. The project integrates wastewater metagenomics, clinical infectious disease data, and agentic AI to build next-generation pathogen surveillance tools for African public health systems. The fellowship provides a competitive stipend covering living expenses, medical coverage, tuition, and research costs. Deadline: 3 June 2026.

Responsibilities

• Harmonise and integrate clinical infectious disease and AMR datasets with longitudinal metagenomic data from 30 urban wastewater sampling sites.
• Conduct epidemiological analyses identifying associations between wastewater pathogen signals and clinical disease outcomes.
• Design and apply agentic AI tools to automate analytical workflows and detect anomalies in surveillance data.
• Develop interactive dashboards for real-time outbreak early warning and public health decision support.
• Engage stakeholders to ensure outputs are user-centred and policy-relevant.
• Publish peer-reviewed papers, policy briefs, and technical documentation.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in Epidemiology, Public Health, Biostatistics, or a closely related field.
• Proficiency in Python and/or R (pandas, scikit-learn, PyTorch, TensorFlow).
• Demonstrated experience in epidemiological analysis and infectious disease surveillance.
• Experience with AWS cloud platform and agentic AI frameworks.
• Version control with Git/GitHub.
• Familiarity with AMR and infectious disease epidemiology.
• Experience with data visualisation tools such as R Shiny, Dash, Tableau, or Power BI.

Nice to have

• Background in wastewater-based epidemiology or environmental genomics.
• Prior experience building dashboards for public health agencies in low- or middle-income country settings.
• Familiarity with DTU GPAP infrastructure or similar genomic surveillance platforms.

How to apply

Apply through the ILRI recruitment portal at ilri.simplicant.com. Submit a cover letter expressing your interest and what you bring to the project, a CV including contact details for three referees, and copies of academic transcripts. Mark the subject line of your cover letter with the reference number ILRI PhD GF/Health/02/2026. Deadline: 3 June 2026.