Agency

Department

Proposed Minimum Salary

Job Location

Job Type

Job Description

Required Education: Doctoral Degree in related field

Preferred Experience: Experience in research related to ‘foods for health’

Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate lab activities, including scheduling, parts and supplies requisition, access, safety and compliance.
• Conduct experiments linking bioactives, whole food and microbiota
• Perform preventive maintenance on laboratory equipment as needed to keep them in optimal working condition.
• Perform record keeping and quality assurance activities to maintain laboratory certification.
• Conduct experiments related to identifying metabolites in plant and biological samples. Develop and conduct research projects related to systems-wide approach to increase consumption of vegetable and fruits and ‘foods for health’.
• Required to work on research teams and collaborate with other experts to achieve the targeted goal of melon integrated project.
• Required to conduct field trials and must be ready to travel within Texas to conduct field trials.
• Participate in grant writing, and collaborative research activities leading to peer reviewed publications.   
• Work with plant disease samples and have complete understanding of diseases and pests of vegetables and fruits and their relationship with potential metabolites.
• Conduct experiments related to use of nanotechnology in agriculture at field and green house.
• Impeccable record keeping and troubleshooting skills of instruments and conduct field experiments.
• Responsible for conducting and maintaining records of experiments. Lab safety and related duties and responsibilities.
• Develop and conduct research projects such as analysis and method development of bioactive compounds. Investigate changes of bioactive compounds during the postharvest handling processes.
• Work with industry partners and collect samples from field from different locations in Texas.
• Train undergraduates, graduate students, and visiting scientists.
• Conduct hands-on training based on need and develop short courses. Responsible for writing external and internal grant proposals, manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals and reports.
• Any duties assigned by the Director of the Vegetable and Fruit Improvement Center (http://vfic.tamu.edu) based on the specific need.

Required Knowledge Skills and Abilities:

• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Design experiments independently for the research with limited assistance
• Demonstrate competency with laboratory work and use of analytical instrumentation.
• Record of accomplishment of peer-reviewed publications and scholarly work in the related areas.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with firm deadlines
• Ability to maintain analytical instrumentation and troubleshoot problems when necessary.
• Ability to write standard operating procedures and demonstrate the ability to follow procedures.
• Ability to work effectively in a team environment
• Ability to multi-task and work cooperatively with others.
• Ability to prepare safety and equipment use manuals and analytical methods as needed.
• Ability to communicate constructively with other scientists and collaborators.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office (Including Excel, Word, Outlook, etc.)
• Ability to maintain laboratory instrumentation and follow applicable safety standards. 
• Ability to work evening and/or weekend hours as needed.

Preferred Knowledge Skills and Abilities:

• Interpret analytical data from LC/MS, GC-MS, Raman spectroscopy, and NMR instrumentation and apply understanding to solving the specific problem.
• Identification, Characterization, Quantitation and Metabolic profiling of Bioactive Natural Products in Plants
• Experience in identifying metabolites in biological samples.
• Sufficient knowledge in statistical analysis tools such as SAS, R, XLstat, Multivariate analysis etc)
• Ability to manage lab group, maintaining supplies and inventory.
• Ability to perform assay development for new compounds and ingredients
• Ability to participate in analyzing and disseminating data results as part of participation in group meetings, prepare manuscripts, periodic reports, scientific papers/presentations and grant proposals.
• Ability to provide advice and assistance to other members of the laboratory and mentor graduate and undergraduate students.

All positions are security-sensitive. Applicants are subject to a criminal history investigation, and employment is contingent upon the institution’s verification of credentials and/or other information required by the institution’s procedures, including the completion of the criminal history check.

Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action/Veterans/Disability Employer.