Website The University of Sydney
About the job
Full time, 22 months fixed term position.
Located in Narrabri at the School of Life and Environmental Sciences.
Exciting opportunity to work at the cutting edge of plant phenomics research in the heartland of Australian agriculture.
Base Salary Level A, $105,314 – $109,301 p.a. + 17% superannuation
About the opportunity
The University of Sydney is welcoming applications for a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Plant Phenomics to join the team in Narrabri in northern NSW at the recently opened International Centre of Crop and Digital Agriculture.
Working closely with Dr. William Salter and his research team, the successful candidate will contribute to our new collaborative GRDC project investigating heat tolerance of chickpea. This role offers an exciting opportunity to contribute to groundbreaking research aimed at enhancing the resilience of chickpea crops to heat stress, a critical challenge in the context of climate change. This research will involve the integration of high-throughput phenotyping, data analysis, and interdisciplinary industry collaboration to develop innovative solutions for improving crop performance under heat stress conditions.
The Postdoctoral Research Associate will be responsible for designing and implementing novel phenotyping protocols, utilising drone and hyperspectral imaging technologies to capture high-resolution phenotypic data and analysing large datasets to uncover key traits associated with heat tolerance.
Your key responsibilities will be to:
- develop and apply phenotyping protocols, including drone-based remote sensing methods, to assess physiological and heat tolerance across diverse chickpea populations
- utilise drone-based hyperspectral tools to capture high-resolution phenotypic data and monitor crop performance under heat stress conditions
- analyse large datasets using statistical and computational tools to identify key phenotypic traits associated with heat tolerance
- collaborate with interdisciplinary teams across academia and industry, including geneticists, agronomists, and bioinformaticians
- prepare and publish research findings in peer-reviewed journals and present at scientific conferences
- mentor and supervise postgraduate students and research assistants
- contribute to grant writing and securing funding for ongoing and future research projects.
About you
The University values courage and creativity; openness and engagement; inclusion and diversity; and respect and integrity. As such, we see the importance of recruiting talent aligned to these values and are looking for a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Plant Phenomics who has:
- a doctorate or PhD in plant physiology or agricultural science (or has submitted and in near completion)
- significant experience with image-based plant phenotyping, remote sensing of plants, or other image-based structure characterisation
- experience in a field research environment, working on large scale agricultural trials
- demonstrated experience in use of research computing with a deep understanding of modern data science software and tools, high performance computing, cloud computing and a range of digital research tools.
To apply for this job please visit usyd.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com.