The Department of Nutritional Sciences invites applications for a 9 month, tenure eligible, full salaried Associate/Full Professor position supporting the Precision Wellness Initiative in emerging areas at the University of Arizona, including aging, brain (cognitive) health, and inflammatory/metabolic diseases. The position’s duties will consist of 80% research and 20% instruction.

The revolutions in genomic, epigenomic, metabolomic, imaging, information, and data science technologies have provided extraordinary opportunities to advance population wellness and optimize treatments, lifestyles and preventives for individuals. The Precision Wellness Initiative at the University of Arizona is designed to enhance research, education training, and service programs that use these advanced tools, and technologies to discover how genetics, lifestyle and environmental factors (such as diet, social factors and exercise) impact individual health. The ultimate goal of this Initiative is to discover and impart novel data-driven approaches and competences to personalize human disease prevention thereby promoting wellness throughout the human life span.

Research: Candidates for this position are expected to have research experience and interests in precision nutrition and health as it relates to aging, brain health, or inflammatory/metabolic diseases. They are also expected to have a strong background and expertise in data-driven science with a special emphasis on omics-based translational research. Candidate qualifications include a Ph.D. degree in nutrition science, genetics, genomics, physiology, pharmacology, or cellular/molecular medicine or a related discipline, high research productivity, a record of success in obtaining external funding, experienced teaching in omics-based technologies, precision nutrition/wellness and/or precision health. Additional research strengths and skills considered include:
– research experience developing nutritional and preventive interventions, prognostic indicators, and physiologic/structural/behavioral in vivo measurement systems for human diseases
– research experience on the effect of nutritional/lifestyle in preserving brain health, cognitive function and maintaining neuroplasticity thereby impacting the progression of aging and enhancing healthy aging.
– research experience in planning and implementation of integrative projects analyzing data from large-scale studies and model systems designed to examine the genetics, proteomics, and metabolomics of human diseases
– experience in scientific leadership roles within multi-disciplinary groups conducting clinical trials and/or observational studies
– sophisticated knowledge of and experience using public and proprietary bioinformatic databases for annotation of multi-dimensional results leading to inference on factors and processes acting in disease pathogenesis or pathophysiology
– experience in analysis of large-scale data sets integrating findings on genetic and epigenetic variation with those on environmental/lifestyle factors that may act as effect modifiers or disease predictors/correlates
– familiarity with emerging applications of machine learning/computational modeling techniques

Teaching: Contribute to the undergraduate and graduate curriculum in following areas: precision health; omics-based translational research including nutrigenomics/nutrigenetics; inflammation, and metabolism; natural history, etiology, pathogenesis and pathophysiology of age-related and inflammatory/metabolic diseases; natural bioactives; development of new undergraduate and graduate programs in precision health and disease prevention; other teaching according to expertise and need. Additionally, the candidate will be expected to:

– Establish and maintain an externally-funded and internationally-recognized research program in precision health/nutrition for health promotion and disease prevention. The program is expected to be interdisciplinary and build upon existing collaborations across colleges and centers of excellence.
– Maintain a strong, peer-reviewed publication record.
– Mentor graduate students in the department of Nutritional Sciences.
– Participate in the instruction of upper level undergraduate and/or graduate courses.
– Serve on department, college and university level committees as required