Research Fellow / Senior Research Fellow - Digital Health (User Experience)

Job Description

The Duke–NUS Centre for Outbreak Preparedness (COP) works to strengthen communicable disease preparedness and response capacity across South and Southeast Asia. COP hosts the Asia Pathogen Genomics Initiative (Asia PGI), a regional network supporting 15 countries to strengthen pathogen genomics surveillance, data use and translation for public health action. COP is also leading the development of a novel AI-enabled platform (PathGen.ai) that links genomic insights to geospatial information to advance decision support. To advance these efforts, we are recruiting a digital health officer to support user experience, system testing and refinement with country partners in ASEAN.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Develop the formative readiness assessment with country partners, including stakeholder interviews, workflow mapping, and documentation of infrastructure, data flows and governance context.
• Design and conduct user research activities during platform testing, including usability testing, structured interviews and narrative walkthrough sessions with laboratory, epidemiology, programme and policy end-users.
• Administer and analyse structured feedback instruments (e.g. usability, workload and technology-adoption measures) and synthesise findings into clear, prioritised recommendations.
• Work hands-on with the technical/ engineering team to translate user research and evaluation findings into concrete platform refinements from specification through to prototyping, testing and validation.
• Contribute directly to iterative development or configuration of platform components in response to user research findings, working within the engineering codebase or tooling where appropriate.
• Support human-AI evaluation activities, including coordination of expert review sessions and structured comparison of platform outputs against expert judgement.
• Maintain clear, well-documented records of user research findings, iteration decisions and platform changes, to support scientific reporting, reproducibility and country partner transparency.
• Contribute to country partner engagement, including preparing materials, coordinating in-country or virtual sessions, and building trusted working relationships with partner institution staff.
• Contribute to technical reports, manuscripts, presentations and other dissemination outputs arising from user research and evaluation findings.

Qualifications

Appointment level will be commensurate with qualifications and experience, including evidence of research independence, applied technical delivery, communication skills, and ability to work across research, engineering and public health teams. Minimum qualifications include:

• A combined Medical and Masters (or equivalent clinical and public health qualification) or PhD equivalent qualification in a relevant field such as digital health, public health, information systems, or a closely related discipline.
• At least 3 years of post-degree experience supporting implementation of digital health/technological innovations in health or related sectors. This should include a track record in conducting user-research and evaluation (e.g. usability testing, structured interviews, development of standardised instruments for usability, workload or technology adoption), together with hands-on technical experience (e.g. platform/system deployment, data engineering, or direct experience working with technical teams/ software developers) to translate research findings into actionable technical specifications.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, to engage directly with a range of stakeholders (e.g., laboratory scientists, epidemiologists, programme managers and policymakers, across different country and institutional contexts) and multi-disciplinary technical teams, with the ability to translate research findings into clear, actionable recommendations for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Track record of applied research outputs, technical delivery, and effective communication with academic, public health and technical stakeholders, commensurate with appointment level.
• Prior experience in genomics, infectious disease surveillance, public health systems or AI-enabled tools is an advantage.
• Experience working in ASEAN partner countries would be an advantage

Candidates with substantial applied research/practice experience and evidence of teaching, mentorship or capacity development may be considered for faculty position in the School.

We regret that only shortlisted candidates will be notified.