Postdoctoral Research Associate

The Texas A&M AgriLife Research Center in Dallas is seeking a creative and energetic postdoctoral associate with a strong background in plant genetics and genomics to form a multidisciplinary team to discover the genetic basis of major biotic and abiotic stress tolerance in warm-season turf grasses. The project involves QTL mapping, genome and transcriptome sequencing of warm-season turf grasses to identify major genes in response to biotic and abiotic stresses.

Responsibilities:

The person filling this position will join a highly interactive team of plant molecular biologists, turf grass breeders, and geneticists, and participate in generating, processing, and evaluating large genomics datasets.

Specific Job Duties include:

• Design and execute experiments based on project objectives.
• Develop new and adapt existing methodologies.
• Communicate regularly and work with other researchers on this project in order to facilitate progress toward program goals.
• Ability to work carefully but efficiently in order to meet project goals in a timely manner.
• Maintain technical documentation.
• Publish research results in peer-reviewed journals.
• Presentation of research results to internal groups and at large national and international meetings.
• Assisting in writing project reports.
• Assisting with day to day lab maintenance.

Required Qualifications:

• Requires a Ph. D in Plant Biology, Genetics, Molecular Biology or related field;
• Demonstrated analytical skills sufficient to troubleshoot and data analysis problems and make recommendations;
• Strong organizational and record-keeping skills;
• Effective oral and written communication and interpersonal skills;
• Ability to handle multiple tasks in parallel while working on multiple projects.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in QTL, genome-wide association and RNA sequencing analyses;
• Experience in bioinformatics;
• Experience in perennial grass species.

The appointment is on an annual basis and continuation is dependent upon satisfactory performance and fund availability.

Applicants who meet all the required qualifications should send the following materials in a single pdf file by email to Qingyi Yu (qyu@ag.tamu.edu) with postdoc application in the Subject line: (1) curriculum vita, (2) a letter describing research interests and experience, (3) a recent research paper, and (4) names and contact information for three references.