Postdoctoral researcher in multimodal AI for population health
 

The Machine Learning for Health team at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), University of Helsinki, is currently seeking a highly-motivated postdoctoral researcher to join our team. 
 

Project overview
 

Healthcare systems collect vast amounts of heterogeneous data routinely through interactions with individuals. Our mission is to use machine learning and data science to find better ways to utilize this data in healthcare planning, personalized medicine and targeted recall-studies. In this position, you will be a part of an expanding team working on difficult and meaningful challenges together with clinicians. You get to work with multimodal nationwide Finnish health data from 7 million individuals including for example medication purchases, laboratory measurements, clinical notes and imaging. Your main project will involve building and studying multimodal health trajectories on a nationwide scale to catch increasing disease risk as early as possible.

In addition, this data, and similar datasets from our collaborators across the Nordics, Baltics and Europe present a fantastic opportunity to pursue your own ambitious research goals. Our other research directions of interest include privacy of AI models trained on health data as well as training AI models on health data across national borders.
 

Key responsibilities

 •    Design, implement and benchmark machine learning models for large-scale health datasets consisting of diverse information including structured medical history, demographics, clinical notes, laboratory measurements, omics and genetics.
 •    Collaborate closely with other team members, and national/ international collaborators.
 •    Assist other team members in experiment planning, data processing and interpretation of results.
 •    Contribute to writing scientific articles, conference presentations, grant applications and supervision of Master’s students and PhD researchers.
 •    Take part in open science and code sharing.
 

Skills, expertise and qualifications

 •    A PhD degree in computational biology, machine learning, computer science, data science, bioinformatics, or a related discipline
 •    Demonstrated machine learning experience in form of high-quality scientific publications, experience working with real-world health data is a plus
 •    Proficiency in Python and experience working in Linux-based HPC environments or cloud computing platforms
 •    Proven experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch, and familiarity with multimodal data fusion is highly desirable
 •    Ability to work independently, as well as collaboratively in interdisciplinary and international research teams
 •    Willingness to supervise junior researchers and develop your supervision skills
 •    Excellent command of spoken and written English
 

Research group 

 
The Machine Learning for Health team focuses on applying artificial intelligence to derive meaningful insights from large, real-world health and biomedical datasets. The team is led by Dr. Tuomo Hartonen. We have active collaborations with leading researchers in the EU, UK and US, with opportunities for international research visits during the employment. We collaborate closely with several research groups at FIMM and at ELLIS Institute Finland. We work with diverse international datasets ranging from Finnish and French national health registries to biobank studies such as FinnGen (Finland), UK Biobank (UK) and All of Us (United States).
 

Contract and salary

 
The position is initially offered for two years, and can be possibly extended. A trial period of six months will be applied. The starting salary will be ca. 3900-4100 euros/month, depending on the appointees’ qualifications and experience, and is based on the University of Helsinki salary system. The University of Helsinki offers comprehensive services to its employees, including occupational health care, support in access to high quality sports facilities, and vast opportunities for professional development. Standard Finnish pension benefits are provided for university employees.
 
Apply at latest by August 16th, 2026. The call may be extended until a hiring decision is made.

How to apply: The application should include:
 
1.    A one-page letter stating the motivation for applying to this position.
2.    A maximum two-page CV.
3.    List of scientific publications.
3.    An official copy of the PhD degree certificate.
4.    Contact information of 2 references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail and telephone number) who have agreed to provide a written statement on behalf of the applicant. Note that the references will be contacted only at a later stage of the process.
 

To apply, please submit the application through the University of Helsinki electronic recruitment system by clicking on Apply for job. Internal applicants (i.e., current employees of the University of Helsinki) please submit your applications through SAP Fiori https://msap.sap.helsinki.fi.

 
For further information on the position, please contact Dr. Tuomo Hartonen (tuomo.hartonen@helsinki.fi). 
 

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The Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM) is an international research unit focusing on human genomics and personalized medicine at the Helsinki Institute of Life Science (HiLIFE) of the University of Helsinki - a leading Nordic university with a strong commitment to life science research. As part of Academic Medical Center Helsinki in Meilahti campus FIMM collaborates locally with the Faculty of Medicine, Helsinki University Hospital and National Institute for Health and Welfare. FIMM is part of the Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine, composed of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the centres for molecular medicine in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and the EU-LIFE Community.