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The opportunity

• Early researcher opportunity if you have a PhD in quantitative or statistical genetics, biostatistics, computational biology, genomics or plant breeding
• Develop and validate statistical approaches for predicting field performance of cotton plants
• Join CSIRO's Agriculture and Food Cotton Biotechnology group for this 3-year postdoctoral role

CSIRO Early Research Career (CERC) Postdoctoral Fellowships provide opportunities to scientists and engineers who have completed their doctorate and 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.

CSIRO Agriculture & Food's Cotton Biotechnology Group requires an innovative and forward-thinking computational geneticist/genomics breeder to join the CSIRO Cotton Breeding Program. This CERC Fellow will develop and validate statistical approaches for predicting field performance of cotton plants and breeding lines under rainfed (dryland) production systems using genomic data, as well as assessing the value of incorporating environment, ancestry, and other omic data streams into a genomic selection model. The CERC Fellow will expand upon the conventional phenotype-based breeding approaches currently used by our breeding team to deliver successful cotton cutivars.

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 including designing and implementing robust statistical approaches and computational pipelines to model the relationships between cotton genotypes and their field-based phenotypes (yield and fibre quality) from rainfed production systems across various growing seasons and environments.
• Recognising and exploiting opportunities for innovation and the generation of new theoretical perspectives, and progress opportunities for the further development or creation of new lines of research.
• Recording, managing, and analysing data using relevant data science techniques. Data streams will include cotton genotype and phenotype data as well as pedigree, environmental, additional phenomic and other omic data sets.
• Maintaining an in-depth familiarity with recent advances in quantitative genetics and applications of Genomic Selection in different crops and animals that may also be applicable to cotton.
• Communicating complex research findings to the CSIRO cotton breeders and industry partners in an understandable manner to assist them in developing new breeding strategies and decision-making tools to enhance the rate of genetic gain in cotton and increase the profitability and sustainability of Australian cotton production.
   

Location: Black Mountain, Canberra, ACT

Salary: AU$96k - AU$105k plus up to 15.4% superannuation

Tenure: Specified term of 3 years

Reference: 97412

To be considered you will need:

• A doctorate (or will shortly satisfy the requirements of a PhD) in a relevant discipline area, such as quantitative or statistical genetics, biostatistics, computational biology, genomics or plant breeding. Please note: To be eligible for this role you must have no more than 3 years (full-time equivalent) of postdoctoral research experience.
• Demonstrated expertise in developing and applying a wide range of analyses for genetic parameter estimation, GWAS, and Genomic Selection, preferably in crop species.
• Demonstrated skills in the handling and analysis of large genotype and phenotype datasets, including the generation of genomic relationship matrices, generation of genomic breeding values using high-dimensional statistical predictive models, and genotype imputation pipelines.
• An understanding of and experience with statistical and machine learning methods to predict quantitative or qualitative traits based on high dimensional genomic data, such as best linear unbiased prediction, penalized regression, Bayesian regression, random forest, support vector machine, neural network and deep learning.
• Evidence of advanced programming skills in languages and statistical software packages relevant to biostatistics and bioinformatics (e.g. R, Python, SAS or equivalent).

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.

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.

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

4 September 2024, 11:00pm AEST