Co-Lead, GA4GH Implementation Forum

About the team

The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) is a global standards development organisation dedicated to realising the potential of genomics in health. Supported by GA4GH staff across four Host Institutions (Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Broad Institute, Wellcome Sanger Institute, and EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute), members of the volunteer community provide expert leadership to GA4GH Work Streams and other entities such as the GA4GH Implementation Forum (GIF).

Launched in 2023 as the successor to the widely successful Federated Analysis Systems Project (FASP), GIF brings together individuals and organisations ready to implement GA4GH products in real-world contexts. GIF serves as both a general forum for all implementers to learn from one another and a testing ground to advance standards integration and deployment to support federated data sharing, access, and analysis.

GIF flagship projects are finite initiatives of multiple parties working toward both end-to-end analysis and reproducibly deploying analyses in diverse locations and environments. GIF is developing its role in assisting implementation groups to understand how to use and implement GA4GH products.

We are seeking two volunteers to co-lead GIF and its activities, including developing a high-level vision and strategy for the forum.

Your role

This is an opportunity to be at the heart of GA4GH’s standards implementation and integration strategy. Working closely with another Co-Lead, GA4GH staff, and members of the GA4GH community, you will contribute to the leadership and direction of GIF efforts, in line with the wider institutional vision and goals of GA4GH.

This will involve developing the GIF strategy, identifying work that can be taken forward by the group, chairing calls, working through technical issues as a group, listening to the community, and building consensus. As GIF works with product teams and groups from across GA4GH, considerable liaison work will be involved, along with the need to engage other teams within GA4GH and the ability to work with those teams on potential further development of their standards.

Why join us

GA4GH accelerates progress in human health by building tools that expand responsible, effective, and democratised use of genomic and clinical data. With a global volunteer community made up of hundreds of individuals from a variety of organisations and institutions, GA4GH provides an active environment in which to drive these aims forward while building on our foundational commitments to human rights, ethics, and security.

Having a truly global and diverse community of contributors and leadership is key to GA4GH’s work. We are actively pursuing strategies to increase participation through our engagement and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) work. We are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all contributors at all levels, and welcome expressions of interest from all interested individuals.

You have:

• a forward-looking vision for federated genomic data sharing, access, and analysis based on open data standards;
• substantial experience with any of the following areas: biomedical informatics, genomics, computational development, or related disciplines;
• experience working in a large, federated genomic data environment;
• the 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 those into action;
• a demonstrable ability to work collaboratively and inspire others to work together across traditional institutional boundaries;
• 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 in disparate national contexts.

You might also have:

• experience working with GA4GH or other standards development organisations;
• experience working as part of a volunteer community;
• experience authoring or consuming APIs for bioinformatics;
• knowledge of RESTful API design;
• experience working with a custodian of genomic data.