Planning and Analysis
Infectious Disease Scientist
Career Area: Planning and Analysis
Occupation Group: Health and Medical Research
Salary
Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.
An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.
A typical Infectious Disease Scientist earns the following wages (national and state):
State
The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $67,795
National
The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $67,306
What Does a Professional in this Career Do?
Performs scientific research with the aim of discovering new solutions or improving existing ones within the fields of infection sciences such as clinical microbiology, immunology, parasitology, and virology. Plans and conducts laboratory experiments, evaluates the results, develops new experiments, performs routine testing procedures, and summarizes findings in reports.
Employment Trends
The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.
Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:
| Growth | ||
|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | 74 | +23.1% |
| Nationwide | 3183 | +13.4% |
Skills
A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:
Baseline Skills
The following are baseline skills every Infectious Disease Scientist is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:
- Research: Experience performing creative and systematic work to understand a product, market, or customer, either before building a new solution, or to troubleshoot an existing issue
- Teamwork / Collaboration: Experience working in collaborative efforts with a team to achieve a common goal or to complete a task in the most effective and efficient way.
- Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
- Troubleshooting: Troubleshooting or dpanneuring is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes on a machine or a system.
- Writing: Experience expressing business messages effectively in written form. This may include planning drafting and revising as necessary.
Specialized Skills
These skills are specific to working in this career:
- Infectious Disease: Infectious disease, also known as infectious diseases, infectious medicine, infectious disease medicine or infectiology, is a medical specialty dealing with the diagnosis, control and treatment of infections.
- Quality Assurance and Control: Working experience with processes used to measure and assure the quality of a product and ensuring products and services meet consumer expectations.
- Infection Control: Infection control is the discipline concerned with preventing nosocomial or healthcare-associated infection, a practical (rather than academic) sub-discipline of epidemiology.
- Microbiology: Microbiology is the study of microscopic organisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells).
- Immunology: Immunology is a branch of biology that covers the study of immune systems in all organisms.
Distinguishing Skills
Any Infectious Disease Scientist that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:
- Virology: Virology is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in virology.
- Epidemiology: Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the patterns, causes, and effects of health and disease conditions in defined populations.
- Flow Cytometry: In biotechnology, flow cytometry is a laser- or impedance-based, biophysical technology employed in cell counting, cell sorting, biomarker detection and protein engineering, by suspending cells in a stream of fluid and passing them through an electronic detection apparatus.
- Cell Culturing: Cell culture is the process by which cells are grown under controlled conditions, generally outside of their natural environment.
Education
This career typically requires the following level of education. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list education requirements.
.| Education Level | % |
| Bachelor's Degree | 18% |
| Master's Degree | 20% |
| Doctoral Degree | 29% |
Experience
This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.
| Experience Required | % |
| 0 to 2 years | 55% |
| 3 to 5 years | 33% |
| 6 to 8 years | 6% |
Many of the programs offered through NC State are designed for working professionals who need additional credentials to enhance existing work experience.
Students who do not have the expected level of experience may wish to look into internship and employment opportunities.
Common Job Titles
It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:
- General Infectious Disease In
- Clinical Laboratory Scientist
- Senior Research Scientist
- Vaccine Specialist
- Infectious Disease In
Similar Occupations
If you are interested in exploring similar occupations, you may want to research the following job titles:
The wage and employment trend information shown here represents historical data and does not guarantee future conditions. Data is downloaded regularly from Burning Glass Technologies. For more information about how they gather data and what it represents, see Burning Glass Technologies - Frequently Asked Questions.