Missions

The recruited candidate will assist the coordinator of the European project MICRORESCUE in supervising the PhD students and technical staff involved in the project, and will take part in both field and laboratory experiments. The fixed-term contract is offered for one year, renewable

Activities

Organisation and coordination of activities carried out by PhD students and technical staff
• Supervision of the development of protocols in microbiology and molecular biology
• Participation in field experiments and in the setup of mesocosm

Skills

• Research experience in microbiology and/or microbial ecology of terrestrial ecosystems (soil and plant)
• Proficiency with standard microbiology and molecular biology tools (nucleic acid extraction, qPCR, metabarcoding / metagenomics)
• Excellent organizational skills for research activities: optimization of experimental protocols, data compilation and management
• Ability to generate reliable, high-quality data; scientific integrity
• Experience in team or project management, particularly in organization and coordination
• Experience in sampling, receiving, handling, and microbiological processing of soils
• Ability to work independently and adapt to new situations
• Ability to work closely with the project coordinator to meet deadlines and deliver expected outcomes
• Ability to solve problems proactively and find solutions
• Ability to work harmoniously within a team, including with students
• Proficiency in French and English with excellent oral and written communication skills
Additional skills or experience
• Ability to work within a French research environment
• Experience in optimizing protocols or developing new protocols
• Proficiency with approaches and experimental design for mesocosm studies
• Participation in the international Long-Term Ecological Research network or a similar ecological research network
• Experience working with spore-forming Firmicutes (bacilli) and/or Actinomycetes (culture, molecular biology, or other)
• Knowledge of open science standards for research, including reproducibility and public data deposition, and commitment to these standards

Work Context

The Microbial Ecology Laboratory comprises more than 70 permanent microbial ecologists who collaborate within seven research teams and five technical platforms enabling precise analyses of microbial activities, natural metabolites, and genomes. The candidate will work within the framework of a European project (MicroRescue: Resolving mechanisms of microbiome rescue to promote resilience to climate change) under the supervision of Dr. Ashley Shade in the “Bacterial Efflux and Environmental Resistance” team.

Constraints and risks

-Possible travel for field sample collection or to attend scientific meetings to present the results.