EPA Computational Toxicology and Risk Assessment Fellowship

*Applications are reviewed on a rolling-basis and applications may close before the deadline.

EPA Office/Lab and Location: A research opportunity is currently available at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP), located in Durham, North Carolina. You will receive training in the Research Triangle Park, NC campus.

The mission of EPA is to protect human health and the environment. EPA works to ensure that: Americans have clean air, land and water; National efforts to reduce environmental risks are based on the best available scientific information; Federal laws protecting human health and the environment are administered and enforced fairly, effectively and as Congress intended; Environmental stewardship is integral to U.S. policies concerning natural resources, human health, economic growth, energy, transportation, agriculture, industry, and international trade, and these factors are similarly considered in establishing environmental policy; All parts of society have access to accurate information sufficient to effectively participate in managing human health and environmental risks; Contaminated lands and toxic sites are cleaned up; and chemicals in the marketplace are reviewed for safety.

Research Project: You will gain experience in data management and analysis across coordinated research and informatics efforts focused on advancing developmental neurotoxicity (DNT) risk assessment and related regulatory science capabilities. These projects encompass a range of data science activities needed to analyze toxicological data, including maintaining models, productionizing research endpoints, developing R packages, and supporting software development, database curation, and quality evaluation efforts for in vitro chemical screening data. Research activities may include acquiring domain knowledge in toxicology and chemistry to support data analysis; wrangling heterogeneous source formats into standard templates for processing; conducting data analysis and curation using controlled vocabularies; performing database scripting; managing code libraries and documentation; identifying and correcting bugs as part of quality control; conducting user acceptance testing; developing automated tools for processing large volumes of data; and applying innovative data science solutions to support risk assessment and regulatory decision-making.

• Being a part of an interdisciplinary team of developers and scientists 
• Creating data visualizations to communicate results to stakeholders
• Thoroughly documenting all research activities as directed by EPA mentor to comply with EPA quality assurance procedures for transparency and reproducibility
• Drafting reports describing complex datasets or data manipulation procedures
• Presenting research in internal reports/memos to be used by EPA scientists
• You may have the opportunity to present research at scientific conferences or contribute to scientific manuscripts 

Learning Objectives: Under the guidance of a mentor, you will learn how to: 

• Design and implement reusable and scalable techniques for data management
• Organize or transform data in databases to support scientific analyses 
• Analyze data quality according to specified criteria
• Write scripts and functions in R to support data migration and data curation software tools
• Develop and collaborate with others to evolve scientific applications into production level tools
• Create and interact with APIs to support scientific efforts
• Create proof of concept projects and adapting/maintaining code from other researchers

Mentor(s): The mentor for this opportunity is Madison Feshuk (feshuk.madison@epa.gov). If you have questions about the nature of the research, please contact the mentor(s).

Anticipated Appointment Start Date: December 8, 2026. All start dates are flexible and vary depending on numerous factors.

Appointment Length: The appointment will initially be for one year and may be renewed three to four additional years upon EPA recommendation and subject to availability of funding.

Level of Participation: The appointment is full time.

Citizenship Requirements: This opportunity is available to U.S. citizens only.

EPA Security Clearance: Completion of a successful background investigation by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is required for an applicant to be on-boarded at EPA.

ORISE Information: This program, administered by ORAU through its contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to manage the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), was established through an interagency agreement between DOE and EPA. Participants do not become employees of EPA, DOE or the program administrator, and there are no employment-related benefits. Proof of health insurance is required for participation in this program. Health insurance can be obtained through ORISE.

ORISE offers all ORISE EPA graduate students and Postdocs a free 5 year membership to the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA).

The successful applicant(s) will be required to comply with Environmental, Safety and Health (ES&H) requirements of the hosting facility.

Questions: Please see the FAQ section of our website. If you have additional questions about the application process please email ORISE.EPA.OCSPP@orau.org and include the reference code for this opportunity.

Salary : $52,693 - $64,453