Postdoctoral Research Scholar- Biochemistry

Essential Job Duties

We are recruiting a Postdoctoral Scholar to join an ARPA-E project focusing on reducing nitrous oxide emissions in corn by integrating ancestral genetics with advanced nitrogen management.

These positions focus on the intersection of germplasm screening and genomic characterization to identify and functionalize alleles derived from teosinte that inhibit microbial nitrogen cycling.

The scholars will lead efforts to mine a newly developed collection of hundreds of Near-Isogenic Lines (NILs) derived from teosinte accessions to identify loci responsible for Biological Nitrification Inhibition (BNI) and Biological Denitrification Inhibition (BDI).

Primary responsibilities include:

• Quantitative Genetics & Mapping: Performing QTL mapping and fine-mapping of BNI/BDI traits to identify candidate regions and alleles across diverse teosinte taxa.
• Genomic Characterization: Utilizing long-read genome assemblies to perform comparative genomics between teosinte introgression lines and modern maize, characterizing sequence variations that drive the target phenotypes.
• Functional Multi-omics: Integrating RNAseq (transcriptomics) of root and rhizosphere tissues and root metabolomics data to identify causative genes and chemical mechanisms of N2O production.
• High-Throughput (HT) Phenotyping: Help develop new methods to quantify N20 at large scale in greenhouse settings.
• Fluorescent based assays of enzyme activity: Developing, scaling, and implementing fluorescence based assays for quantifying enzyme activity in soil extracts.