Description

The USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center at Patuxent Research Refuge is seeking applicants for a postdoctoral / post-master’s research position in multi-omics analysis of avian and other wildlife, and their microbial communities.

Research in our group is focused on the effects of diverse anthropogenic and natural environmental stressors (e.g., pesticides, pharmaceuticals, PFAS, algal toxins) on wildlife health (including microbiome, immune and endocrine systems), and wildlife and zoonotic pathogen emergence. 

The position will work on projects that utilize modern sequencing technologies and other 'omics techniques, bioinformatic tools, and microbial databases for laboratory and field investigations that examine the effects of urban, agricultural, and industrial contaminants and harmful algal blooms on birds and other wildlife species. The position will specifically focus on microbiome, virulome, resistome, and immunomodulation. We are particularly interested in candidates with experience in:

• planning, organizing, and implementing field or laboratory studies with birds or other wildlife;
• bioinformatics analysis of avian or other wildlife microbiome, metabolome and transcriptome, differential host and microbial gene expression, viral and bacterial genome assembly, and multivariate statistical analysis of the data;
• developing bioinformatic pipelines, and/or using software such as Mothur, QIIME2, Phyloseq, DADA2, metagenomeSeq, vegan, randomForest, MEGAHIT, DIAMOND, SALMON, DESeq2, and MaAsLin2 or similar.

This position is at the GS-11 level ($78,592.00 to $102,166.00 / Per Year), initially for 13 months with a possibility of renewal for up to 10 years pending satisfactory performance and availability of funding. The appointments can start as soon as March 2024.

Requirements

Applicants must have a degree in wildlife biology, molecular ecology, microbiology or other related field in the life sciences and hands-on experience in computational and molecular biology techniques.

• Excellent verbal and written skills in English are essential.
• A proven track record in scientific publication. 
• The ideal candidate will also have experience in scientific grant and report writing. 
• Candidates must be able to perform desired analyses independently, analyze data with common statistical packages, write publishable manuscripts, and communicate and work effectively with multiple PIs.

The position is only open to U.S. citizens or permanent residents.