PhD position in soil microbiome and greenhouse gas emissions

UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO
Te Whare Wananga o Otago

Dunedin, New Zealand

PhD position in soil microbiome and greenhouse gas emissions
DEPARTMENT of MICROBIOLOGY and IMMUNOLOGY

Qualified candidates are invited to apply to pursue a PhD project in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. This research project will be part of a fully funded international collaboration aimed at Mitigating Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Emissions by improved pH management of soils. The goal of thisfree post phd project is to investigate the microbial response to management practices that manipulate the production and consumption of N2O in soils. The PhD student will use bioinformatics to analyse next generation sequencing data (metagenomics, transcriptomics, and amplicon sequencing) to investigate the soil microbiome in field and lab experiments.

The successful candidate will be hosted by the Morales lab (https://micro.otago.ac.nz/our-people/our-people/sergio-morales/), and will join a dynamic team of international researchers from Norway, Ireland, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Finland, France and New Zealand with an extensive network of collaborators. Student should be able to start by Feb 2018 or sooner.

Requirements
Candidates need a degree which includes a graded thesis component (e.g. Masters or BSc Honours) demonstrating his/her research ability and have an excellent academic record. Published, peer-reviewed papers are desirable but not essential. All applicants will be required to apply for an Otago scholarship to cover tuition and stipends (not controlled by PI see here for requirements and details: http://www.otago.ac.nz/study/scholarships/otago001308.html, http://www.otago.ac.nz/study/scholarships/database/index.html). Candidates should be willing to work in multidisciplinary research teams, show leadership and independence, and must have strong English written and oral skills. Experience in generation and analysis of next-generation sequencing data, strong computer skills and/or proficiency in R or Python are ideal.

Appointment:
Student should be able to start by Feb 2018 or sooner.