Postdoc wanted (official ad forthcoming)

Job Description: The Balakrishnan Lab (www.balalab.com) is seeking a postdoctoral researcher in behavioral and evolutionary genomics. The primary responsibilities of the fellow will be to contribute to ongoing research projects and to assist with lab oversight and student mentoring. The postdoc would be involved in collaborative work on the courtship display behavior and sexual selection in neotropical lekking manakins, brood parasitic behavior, and/or song learning behavior. Most of these projects have (really cool) existing data that could be immediately analyzed for publication. For example, the manakin work extends this study to examine in detail social status-dependent gene expression. The postdoctoral fellow will also be encouraged to develop new research avenues. This position also offers the opportunity for the postdoc to develop their teaching experience by contributing to an established workshop on genomic data analysis taught at ECU.

During the 1-2 years of this fellowship, I will be serving as a rotating program officer at the National Science Foundation. I will be making regular visits to Greenville for mentoring as well as conducting regular meetings via Skype etc.  Because of this somewhat unusual situation, some sort of “remote”-scenario may be possible for applicants to this position, though some weekly time on campus is required.

The postdoctoral researcher will interact with multiple labs and departments where they will gain broad training behavioral and evolutionary genomics.  The evolution/behavior/ecology group at ECU is particularly strong. The Balakrishnan Lab is active in outreach and community engagement through Nerd Nite and projects with Sylvan Heights Birds Park (https://shwpark.com/). Sylvan Heights is a focus of an ECU-wide collaborative initiative and the Fellow would be encouraged to pursue opportunities there. The fellowship could even be structured to more heavily emphasize outreach.

Qualifications: Candidates should hold a Ph.D. in Biology or related disciplines and should have demonstrated experience in the analysis of genome-scale datasets (e.g., RNA-seq, ddRAD-seq, or whole genome resequencing etc.) The successful applicant will be expected to be creative, self-motivated, and able to help mentor and supervise undergraduate and graduate students and work with a diverse team of collaborators. For inquiries contact Chris Balakrishnan.