Love 🧬#GENETICS, love 🦠 #MICROBES, love 🦇 #BATS? Excited by integrative research? Tigga Kingston and Caleb Phillips at Texas Tech University are hiring an #integrative biology #postdoc to join us on an NSF-supported project that integrates bat genetics, molecular dietary analysis, and microbiome data from forest-dependent bats sampled across a habitat degradation gradient in Malaysia to quantify processes and relationships shaping microbiome communities.

Required Qualifications: Doctoral Degree (or foreign equivalent) that incorporated bioinformatic approaches to answer questions in ecology, evolution, genetics or closely related fields. Examples would include, but not be limited to, genomics, metagenomics, or microbial ecology. The degree should be completed by May 2023. Proven interests in integrative science crossing disciplines and enthusiasm for the integration of omics data and ecology.

Preferred Qualifications: Strong communication skills across disciplines as demonstrated by published or submitted peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts. Keen interest in or experience with high dimensional, integrative data analyses. Applicants should be willing to work as part of a diverse multidisciplinary and multicultural team and be excited about educational outreach and engagement.

Brief Description of Duties & Opportunities: Our goals are to determine how genetics, sociality, and diet influence the assembly of bat microbiomes and how assembly processes are disrupted by habitat degradation. The postdoctoral researcher (PDR) will work closely with Dr Phillips employing informatic approaches to answer these questions. As part of the project, the postdoctoral researcher will have ample opportunity to build on or acquire primary skill sets in metagenomic and genomic analyses, advanced statistics. The PDR will work closely with Dr Kingston on the development and implementation of a broader impact program that brings bat and microbiome diversity to 4^th and 5^th graders.  Specifically, the PDR will:

• Analyze and integrate molecular ecological data sets including ddRADseq, diet and environmental insect sampling (COI gene) and microbiome composition (16S).
• Build on or acquire primary skill sets in bioinformatics and statistics (e.g., structural equation modeling) and secondary skill sets in fieldwork and integrative analyses.
• Prepare manuscripts including writing, editing, and figure preparation. May also assist in grant writing.
• Assist with developing and implementing an innovative active-learning experience called “The Malaysian Bat Education Adventure”.
• Work in close collaboration with the two PIs and graduate students.
• Presenting at Scientific Conferences and Meetings.

The position is funded for one year with the possibility of a second year.

Apply!

Application packages should include CV, contact information for three references, Research Statement, and three examples of the applicant’s published work.  Please submit applications to caleb.phillips@ttu.edu with the subject line “Integrative Microbiome Assembly Postdoc”.