FIFA Syndromic Surveillance Fellow

Mission Statement

The mission of the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) is to work in partnership with communities to protect and promote the health and well-being of all Boston residents, especially those impacted by racism and systemic inequities. The BPHC sets an expectation that all staff and leadership commit, individually and as part of the BPHC team, to hold ourselves accountable to establishing a culture of anti-racism and advance racial equity and justice through each of our bureaus, programs, and offices.

Job Description

The FIFA Syndromic Surveillance Fellow will support the Boston Public Health Commission's preparedness efforts for FIFA-related events by conducting syndromic surveillance activities. The Fellow will be responsible for monitoring priority conditions and syndromes using the National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP) platform.

Key responsibilities will include establishing baseline levels for selected syndromes, configuring and maintaining alerting systems within NSSP, and developing reproducible workflows in R to clean, process, and analyze syndromic surveillance data. The Fellow will also contribute to the identification of emerging public health trends and potential signals of concern.

In addition, the Fellow will design and produce data visualizations and summary reports to communicate findings to internal stakeholders and support situational awareness during event preparedness and response. This role may also involve collaborating with epidemiologists and other public health professionals to refine surveillance strategies and ensure timely, actionable insights.

Minimum Qualifications

• Master's or doctoral degree in epidemiology, public health, biostatistics, statistics, or related field; three (3) years of related work experience doing advanced data wrangling and statistical analysis, particularly to assess the social determinants of health.
• 1 - 2 years of experience working with syndromic surveillance data including anomaly detection
• Advanced knowledge and experience with statistical software - R or R studio.
• Experience with version control systems, in particular Git and GitHub.
• Experience in management, cleaning and analyzing data.
• Experience in coordinating complex projects.
• Experience in reporting and visualization of public health or epidemiologic data.

Additional Information

• A Criminal Offenders Records Information request must be completed for this position. However, a record is not an automatic bar to employment but is reviewed in relation to the job applied for.
• Certain immunizations will be recommended and/or required prior to commencement of employment duties.
• Any position that requires an advanced degree will be subject to education verification.
• Certain positions at the BPHC may be Grant Funded.
• The Boston Public Health Commission is an EEO Employer and all applicants meeting the minimum requirements are eligible to apply.
• Certain positions at the BPHC may require Child Protective Service Background verification.
• The advertised shift and schedule are subject to change at the department's discretion.

Shift

Part time casual Monday through Friday, hours per week up to and not to exceed 29 ending September 1, 2026

Grant Funding Information

This position is partially dependent on grants / external funding sources.

Pay Range

$45 - $55 / hr