USDA-ARS Postdoctoral Fellowship in Legume Genome Bioinformatics

Description

The USDA Office of Analytical Research Service (ARS) located in Ames, Iowa seeks a Ph.D. qualified researcher for a short‑term fellowship focused on computational biology of soybean and other legume genetic, genomic, and phenotypic datasets.

The project aims to provide stewardship of legume genomic datasets, identify conserved genetic elements across taxonomic depths, and utilize high‑value elements for crop improvement using computational biology methods in a Unix environment on high‑performance computing resources.

• Apply computational biology, genetics, and AI methods, including marker‑trait association, syntenic relationship analysis, pan‑genome metrics, gene family inference, and evolutionary event inference.
• Conduct scientific manuscript writing.

Steven Cannon (steven.cannon)

• Anticipated start:
  October 2026 (flexible).
• Initial length:
  One year, renewal possible.
• Participation:
  Full time.

$75,284 – $90,234 per year, commensurate with experience.

U.S. citizen only.

Doctoral degree in a relevant field obtained within the last five years.

• Knowledge of genomic sequence analysis and plant genetics.
• Unix scripting, proficiency in Python, Perl, awk, or R.
• Experience with genome alignment, phylogenetic tree construction, and statistical methods for sequence homology interpretation.
• Botanical knowledge of major angiosperm taxa.

• Citizenship: U.S. Citizen Only.
• Doctoral degree received within the last 60 months.
• Eligible disciplines:
  Computer and Information Sciences, Scientific Computing and Informatics, Software Engineering, Life Health and Medical Sciences, etc.
• Veteran status:
  Preference for veterans with a degree received within the last 120 months.

8/28/2026 3:00:00 PM Eastern Time Zone

Sara Beth