The UF/IFAS Southwest Florida Research and Education Center is in the heart of citrus and vegetable production in Florida and provides a unique opportunity to explore both basic and applied scientific research questions.
Research areas include examining the impact and role of management techniques, such as cover crops, compost, and fumigants, on the soil microbiome and citrus and vegetable production. All projects will focus on interactions between microbial community composition, soil chemistry, root growth, and plant growth, and determining if treatments have specific impacts on the soil microbiome. Expertise in environmental microbial ecology, molecular methods, including high-throughput amplicon sequencing and qPCR, and bioinformatics is required.
The incumbent will develop hypotheses based on current literature, design and conduct experiments, perform work in the laboratory and field, analyze data, prepare manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals, and present at scientific conferences. The postdoctoral associate will work independently with minimal supervision. This is a 2-year position.
Responsibilities:
- Experimental design
- Field sample collection and processing
- Data analysis and interpretation
- Review of relevant literature
- Preparation of manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals
Minimum qualifications:
- PhD in bioinformatics, environmental microbiology, microbial ecology, or biogeochemistry
- Expertise in bioinformatics for environmental microbiology
- Experience with bash scripts/command line
- Evidence of effective scientific writing and publication in English
- Valid driver’s license
Preferred qualifications: Experience in soil microbiology, proficiency with R and QIIME2, proficiency in programming (python)
Advertised salary: $51,000 plus benefits
Interested persons should only submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae, and contact information for 3 references, to Dr. Sarah Strauss (strauss@ufl.edu). Please submit materials in pdf format.