Research technician in evolutionary biology - deadline 3 April 2023
Research Technician evolutionary biology (part-time: 60-80% fte)
Applications are invited for a Research Technician in Dr Vicencio Oostra’s laboratory in the School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences at Queen Mary University of London. Our group applies experimental, genomic and ecological approaches to African butterflies to understand adaptation to environmental change. The role is part of an exciting UKRI-funded project “Testing how developmental pathways can predict evolutionary adaptation to climate change: an Eco-Devo approach”.
Salary: £30,642 per annum pro-rata (Grade 3, inclusive of London allowance)
Location: Mile End, London
Date posted: 20 March 2023
Closing date: 3 April 2023
The post is part-time (21 or 28 hours / 60 or 80% FTE) and available for 36 months.
Further details and apply: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/jobs/vacancies/items/8208.html
For informal inquiries please drop me an email at v.oostra@qmul.ac.uk or via https://twitter.com/mariposaatcccgc
We value diversity and encourage candidates with unique backgrounds and skills to apply, especially from underrepresented backgrounds.
About the role
Your main responsibility will be the establishment and long-term maintenance of colonies of African butterflies and their host plants. We currently have one such colony in the lab, and we will establish more. You will also provide technical and research support to experimental work by staff and students, including rearing experiments, sample collection and phenotyping, helping to find creative solutions for arising lab needs. You will help to keep the lab organised, including ordering and stock-taking of materials, archiving samples and ensuring health & safety in the lab.
About you
You should have a relevant BSc/BA degree (MSc desirable) and proven experience with laboratory techniques, ideally with plant growing and/or insect rearing. You should have the ability to independently plan practical work and experiments, follow research protocols, maintain good laboratory records, and train lab colleagues. You will have a pro-active, self-motivated attitude, be well-organised and find practical and creative solutions to challenges. Importantly, you should be willing to learn new techniques and keen to support others in the team
postdoctoral fellowship applications
BSc and MSC students
We have several student projects available in the lab, ranging from 2 to 12 months, at both undergraduate and graduate level. Have a look at the research projects and drop me an email if any of those interest you, and we can discuss this along with your own ideas.
Most projects involve a fair dosis of statistics, genomics and bioinformatics, so acquaintance with programming in R, Python or bash would be helpful, though you can also learn it here. There are also projects where the focus is more on lab experiments, including butterfly rearing and approaches from life history and evo-devo research (e.g. molecular biology, dissections, injections, hormone measurements, CRISPR-Cas9, in situ hybridisations). There may also be potential for doing field-based projects, so do get in touch if this interests you.