The Department of Pharmacodynamics (PD) at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy (COP) and the University of Florida Genetics Institute (UFGI) invites applications for a tenured or tenure-track faculty position at the Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor level. Candidates should have a Ph.D., M.D., or equivalent degree in an appropriate discipline, demonstrable success in academic research and extramural funding relative to their career stage, and an interest in contributing to graduate and professional education in the College. Candidates should have expertise with Artificial Intelligence (AI) or Machine Learning, and research interests that align with the UFGI and/or the Dept. of PD.

The UFGI is an interdisciplinary institute that seeks to promote excellence in the areas of genetics and genomics through research, education, and outreach. There are over 220 faculty who are members of UFGI and are from multiple colleges at UF including the Colleges of Medicine, Pharmacy, Veterinary Medicine, Liberal Arts & Sciences, Engineering as well as from IFAS. UFGI also administers the Genetics & Genomics Ph.D. program.

The Department of PD is one of the core basic science departments in the UF COP. Department faculty members work at the intersection of pharmacology, physiology, and neuroscience. We advance the drug discovery mission of the college by revealing how detailed cellular level mechanisms are connected to systems level physiology and behavior, in both health and disease. This is accomplished by identifying novel therapeutics and evaluating their effects in diverse in vitro and in vivo models, and by connecting molecular, cellular, and systems level observations to reveal new therapeutic targets.

Current work in the department focuses on the neurobiology and treatment of addiction, reward, pain, and stress, on the central and peripheral impacts of aging, on the biological mediators of neuroHIV, on the role of microglia and neuroinflammation in the etiology of neurodegenerative disorders, on the effects of microgravity on muscle cell biology, and on the use of transcriptional regulators as novel therapeutics in metabolic/cardiovascular disorders, autoimmune diseases, and cancer. The Department is interested in recruiting highly motivated and collaborative individuals who are well prepared to leverage AI and machine learning to address novel questions in these or closely related areas. The Department is particularly interested in the application of AI or machine learning in the context of signal transduction, neural network activity, quantitative in vitro and in vivo microscopy, metabolomics, proteomics, and transcriptomics.

UF is currently ranked #5 nationally among public universities, while the COP is currently ranked #3 in NIH Research funding, #3 in total federal funding, and #3 in total research funding. Notably, the College and the Department are located in the middle of a vibrant Health Sciences Center, the only one in the country to join six-health related colleges and multiple highly ranked basic science departments on a single contiguous campus. A number of well-established Institutes and Centers (including the UFGI, the Center for Integrative Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease, the Center for Natural Product Drug Discovery and Development, the Cancer Center, the McKnight Brain Institute, the Center for Addiction Research, and the Center for Cognitive Aging and Memory) further build and maintain strong interactions across multiple departments and colleges. Collaborative opportunities are abundant. The Health Sciences Center is also closely integrated with the Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation and Technology, further enhancing our potential for transformative and translational research.

UF is also a national leader in terms of integrating AI into education and research. We are home to HiPerGator, one of the most powerful supercomputers available to a University in the world (HiPerGator - Research Computing - University of Florida (ufl.edu)). HiPerGator includes over 70,000 cores for traditional computing, 608 NVIDIA RTX 2080TI and RTX 6000 GPUs for artificial intelligence analyses, and 4 petabytes of high-performance storage. Further information on UF’s AI Initiative is available at ai.ufl.edu.

We welcome applications from anyone who would bring additional dimensions to the department’s research, teaching, and clinical mission, including women, members of underrepresented groups, protected veterans, and persons with disabilities. The University of Florida offers a salary commensurate with education and experience, resources to promote health and well-being, and a robust leave package with family-friendly benefits.

Applicants are asked to provide a cover letter, CV, statement of research interest, and contact information of three professional references. Please direct any additional questions to the Chair of the Search Committee (Charles J. Frazier, Ph.D., cjfraz@ufl.edu).