Acknowledgement of Country

CSIRO acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land, sea and waters, of the area that we live and work on across Australia. We acknowledge their continuing connection to their culture and pay our respects to their Elders past and present. View our vision towards reconciliation

Child Safety

CSIRO is committed to the safety and wellbeing of all children and young people involved in our activities and programs. View our Child Safe Policy.

The Opportunity

• Do you have a PhD in viral genomics or vertebrate epigenomics?
• Conduct impactful research and collaborate with international researchers.
• Join CSIRO’s Natural Collections and Marine Infrastructure Team in this 3-year postdoctoral opportunity!

CSIRO Early Research Career(CERC) Postdoctoral Fellowships provide opportunities to scientists and engineers who have completed their doctorateand have less than three years of relevant postdoctoral work experience. These fellowships aim to develop the next generation of future leaders of the innovation system.
Viral biodiversity in Australasia will be tracked in historical samples from wildlife biorepositories using cutting-edge museum-genomics technology. Revealing the long-term history of infections will allow us to identify interfaces promoting emergence and other red-flags for spillover events, including viral prevalence, geographic spread, pathogen diversity, host-switches, or altered host response to infection.
The CERC Fellow will develop a viral biodiversity catalog for the Australasian region, compile a virus-host association database, characterise evolutionarily independent host responses and collaborate with an international team to model zoonotic spillover risk in the Australasian region.

Your duties will include:

• Carrying out innovative, impactful research of strategic importance to CSIRO that will, where possible, lead to novel and important scientific outcomes.
• Conducting genomic and epigenomic analysis on a range of organisms, with a focus on preserved tissues and other low-quality specimens (taxa will include terrestrial and aquatic vertebrates).
• Adapting and developing original experimental methods in support of existing and future research.
• Undertaking genomic and epigenomic data analysis and develop novel bioinformatic pipelines.
• Contributing to the maintenance of collection databases and management of associated metadata.

Location: Black Mountain, Canberra, ACT
Salary: AU$92k - AU$101k plus up to 15.4% superannuation
Tenure: Specified term of 3 years
Reference: 93671

To be considered you will need:

• A doctorate (or will shortly satisfy the requirements of a PhD) in a relevant discipline area, such as viral genomics or vertebrate epigenomics. Please note: To beeligible for this role you must have no more than 3 years (or full-time equivalent) of postdoctoral research experience.
• Hands-on wet-lab experience with RNA extraction, chromatin isolation and/or other advanced molecular biology workflows.
• Bioinformatic experience with metagenomic analytical pipelines or chromatin accessibility mapping.
• A willingness to participate in a 3–6-month international research placement with US leaders in historical pathogen genomics (University of Kansas and University of New Mexico).

For full details about this role please view the Position Description

Eligibility

Appointment to this role is subject to provision of a national police check and may be subject to other security/medical/character requirements.
Candidates will be expected to commence employment by 31 January 2024.

Flexible Working Arrangements

We work flexibly at CSIRO, offering a range of options for how, when and where you work.

Diversity and Inclusion

We are working hard to recruit people representing the diversity across our society, and ensure that all our people feel supported to do their best work and feel empowered to let their ideas flourish.

About CSIRO

At CSIRO Australia's national science agency, we solve the greatest challenges through innovative science and technology. We put the safety and wellbeing of our people above all else and earn trust everywhere because we only deal in facts. We collaborate widely and generously and deliver solutions with real impact.

CSIRO is committed to values-based leadership to inspire performance and unlock the potential of our people.

CSIRO is committed to the safety and wellbeing of all children and young people involved in our activities and programs, whether we are undertaking research, engaging with the public or nurturing future scientists in person or online. Source – CSIRO Child Safe policy 2023

Join us and start creating tomorrow today!

How to Apply

Please apply on-line and provide a cover letter and CV that best demonstrate your motivation and ability to meet the requirements of this role.

Applications Close

31 August 2023, 11:00pm AEST