Infectious Disease Community Co-Lead

In this role, you will help develop the ID CoI’s strategy, identify and filter through work relevant to GA4GH and PHA4GE working groups, recognise opportunities for Study Group creation, and chair calls to guide collaborative discussions. The ID CoI’s efforts will focus on advancing human and pathogen genomics for infectious disease diagnosis and treatment, developing data standards, improving data sharing and integration, and ensuring global collaboration.

About the Team

The Infectious Disease Community of Interest (ID CoI) was established in 2022 by two leading organisations: the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH), which specialises in genomics standards, and the Pathogen Health Alliance for Genomics Epidemiology (PHA4GE), which is dedicated to advancing public health genomics. The ID CoI unites international experts dedicated to advancing human and pathogen genomics to improve the diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases.

GA4GH is a global standards development organisation focused on realising genomics’ potential in health. Supported by secretariat staff across five host institutions (Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard,  Wellcome Sanger Institute, EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute, and McGill University’s Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Institute of Genomic Medicine), GA4GH’s volunteer community provides expert leadership to its Work Streams and Implementation Communities, including the ID CoI.

PHA4GE is a global coalition working to establish sustainable bioinformatics capacity, enabling public health laboratories worldwide to adopt pathogen sequencing. PHA4GE to establish global consensus data standards, document and share best practices, improve the availability of critical bioinformatic tools and resources and advocate for greater openness, interoperability, accessibility and reproducibility in public health bioinformatics.

Communities of Interest (CoIs) are specialised groups that explore use cases, challenges, and successes in implementing GA4GH standards across specific domains. The ID CoI, along with other domain areas such as cancer, rare disease, and clinical genomics, shares the goal of enhancing communication and collaboration, and connecting international initiatives through unified interoperability standards.

Your role

As an Infectious Disease Community Co-Lead, you will be central to shaping the community’s direction and collaborating with an additional Co-Lead, as well as GA4GH and PHA4GE members. This role involves contributing to the leadership and strategy of the ID CoI’s efforts in alignment with GA4GH and PHA4GE’s organisational goals. You will help develop the ID CoI’s strategy, identify and filter through work relevant to GA4GH and PHA4GE working groups, recognise opportunities for Study Group creation, and chair calls to guide collaborative discussions. The role also includes building consensus on technical issues, liaising with various teams across GA4GH and PHA4GE, and advancing standards development.

The ID CoI’s efforts will focus on advancing human genomics for infectious disease diagnosis and treatment, developing data standards, improving data sharing and integration, and ensuring global collaboration. You will contribute to key milestones outlined in the community’s road map, which includes:

• Facilitating global collaborations to advance genomics in infectious disease
• Enhancing collaboration between human genomics and pathogen research communities
• Providing practical guidance for better sharing and analysis of infectious disease data

This is an opportunity to lead efforts that align with GA4GH and PHA4GE’s wider direction while addressing critical challenges in infectious disease genomics.

You have

• Experience in infectious disease research and any of the following areas: biomedical informatics, genomics, computational development, or related disciplines
• An ability to work effectively with and provide leadership to a broad range of people from multiple disciplines and cultures
• The ability to engage with others, explore multiple points of view and build consensus
• The capacity to identify opportunities aligned with the group’s goals and translate these into actionable plans
• The ability to translate scientific or organisational needs expressed, for example, in implementation groups, and translate into action.
• A demonstrable ability to work collaboratively
• An understanding of the complexity of integration across projects and standards in genomics with previous experience in this area and a deep understanding of the need for standards to work internationally

You might also have

• Experience working with GA4GH, PHA4GE, or other standards development organisations
• Experience working as part of a volunteer community
• Experience authoring or consuming APIs for bioinformatics
• Experience working with a custodian of genomic data
• Experience working on or with a project for sharing genomic data between organisations

Why join us

GA4GH and PHA4GE offer a unique, global volunteer-driven environment that supports the development of genomics standards essential for health. By joining the ID CoI, you will be at the forefront of advancing genomic research for infectious diseases, helping to shape the future of global data sharing, interoperability, and standards in this critical field.

Having a truly global community of contributors and leadership is key to our work. We are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for contributors at all levels and welcome applications and nominations from all interested individuals.

Submit your nominations here.