Summary

The Neurogenetics Laboratory at the Duncan Neurological Research Institute (NRI) of Texas Children’s Hospital is seeking a Genetic Counseling Research Fellow. The Genetic Counselor Fellow serves as a liaison between patients, families, research, and clinical teams. The neurogenetics research utilize cutting-edge genomic technologies to diagnose and characterize rare disease, implement equitable genomic medicine, and understand the genetic basis of epilepsy, autism, neurodevelopmental, neuropsychiatric, and neurodegenerative disorders. The Genetic Counselor Fellow will have a unique opportunity to collaborate with a diverse array of research, laboratory, bioinformatics, and clinical faculty, while simultaneous interfacing with rare disease community through counseling and outreach. The primary responsibilities of the Genetic Counselor Fellow will be project design and implementation, project management, patient advocacy and engagement, obtain and perform medical record reviews, consult with other genetic counselors and researchers, counsel on test indications and findings, interpret genetic and genomic test results, gather statistics on outcomes, data collection, conduct data analysis and interpretation, manuscript preparation, presentations, and participate in academic research. This role offers the opportunity for professional growth to foster a career as a genetic counseling researcher and encompass mentorship from world-renowned scientists, as well as clinicians, geneticists, and a network of more than 50 genetic counselors throughout the BCM and TCH institutions in the Texas Medical Center. Flexibility with occasional evenings and weekend schedules (study visits and counseling may need to be coordinated with participant hospitalizations, research and family conferences, or provider availabilities). This position is fully on-site. New or soon-to-be graduates encouraged to apply. Flexibility with occasional evenings or weekends.

Job Duties

• Plans, directs, conducts specialized and advanced research experiments.
• Identifies, recruits, and consents families to genomic research projects.
• Documents family history information.
• Collects necessary records, such as previous genetic testing results, medical records, imaging studies, and HIPAA authorizations.
• Communicates with study participants, research investigators, healthcare providers, and genetic testing laboratories.
• Coordinates research study genetic testing procedures and maintain documentation.
• Conducts interviews for data collection.
• Provides research results counseling.
• Develops and conducts surveys for data collection and analysis.
• Collects, evaluates, analyzes, and interprets clinical and research data.
• Develops and maintains study participant databases, records, study documentation.
• Develops and facilitates preclinical and clinical research findings.
• Establishes new research protocols and standardized operating procedures procedures.
• Summarizes research findings and publishes results in research journals.
• Teaches new or less experienced trainees, genetic counseling colleagues, study team members, and collaborators.
• Participates in research training opportunities.
• Presents the results of their research findings to researchers, collaborators, faculty, and at educational or research meetings.
• Performs other job-related duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

• Master's in Genetic Counseling.
• Completion of a Master's thesis.

Preferred Qualifications

• Board-eligible or Board-certified Genetic Counselor (CGC) by the American Board of Genetic Counseling (ABGC)
• Experience in clinical research and statistical analysis.
• Experience with human-centered design, neuropsychology, genetics, neuroscience, or implementation science.
• Experience with online database management systems, including RedCap.
• Experience using online genomic databases such as gnomAD, UCSC Genome Browser, ClinVar, OMIM, etc.
• Spanish-speaking or bilingual.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, Powerpoint) and Electronic Medical Record systems (e.g. EPIC)
• Ability to lift 25 pounds and walk 0.5 to 1.5 miles to on campus locations in the Texas Medical Center. 
  
  

Other

Flexibility with occasional evenings or weekends. (may need to collect biospecimens and data, participate in study visits, or attend conferences and meetings that may fall outside the 8 am to 5:30 pm M-F window.) Cubicle in open office area in a research laboratory and will require walking to on campus Texas Medical Center research and clinical locations. Meeting rooms are available for confidential study participant and patient calls at the Duncan NRI.