Innovation Postdoctoral Fellow, Data Science & AI Vision Foundation Models for Cellular Imaging in AI Drug Discovery

Role: Postdoctoral Fellow in biomedical research focusing on AI-powered phenotypic drug discovery at Novartis. Primary objectives include developing foundation models for high-content cellular imaging using self-supervised learning, benchmarking model generalization across assays and imaging modalities, and enabling downstream applications in drug discovery. Responsibilities involve curating large microscopy datasets, designing evaluation protocols, extending models to multimodal data, and building scalable pipelines on HPC and cloud platforms. Requirements: PhD in a relevant scientific discipline (conferred in 2026), strong publication record, proficiency in Python and deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX), experience with vision foundation models, and knowledge of high-content biomedical imaging. Preferred qualifications include experience pretraining vision models on large datasets, expertise in digital pathology or phenomics, distributed training, and publications in top ML or biomedical venues. High-value specifics: focus on advancing AI in high-content cellular imaging, foundation models, self-supervised learning, and phenotypic profiling for drug discovery. Collaboration spans cross-disciplinary data scientists and engineers, with exposure to translating scientific insights into medicines. Location: San Diego, CA; onsite; no relocation support; three-year full-time training.