Senior Scientist

Company Description At Syngenta Seeds Field Crops, we're shaping the future of agriculture and empowering farmers to meet the ever-growing demand for food and fuel. We’re a global Ag Tech powerhouse, headquartered in the United States, with passionate, local experts collaborating with farmers to deliver solutions that create market opportunities. We unite precision breeding, advanced biotechnology trait choice, and digital platforms for unmatched in-field performance.

Our seeds help mitigate risks such as disease, insect, weed, and extreme weather pressures, all while promoting sustainable farming practices that protect and enhance our planet. Join our mission of revolutionizing food security and transforming agriculture.

Job Description This role is responsible for driving the discovery, development, and delivery of innovative biotech traits that provide resistance to disease through hands-on experimentation and close collaboration with experts and cross-functional teams both within and outside of Syngenta. The position establishes and optimizes high-throughput bioassays for multiple pathogens, including plant-parasitic nematodes, in both laboratory and greenhouse environments. Working collaboratively across Seeds and Crop Protection, the role integrates pathology insights into the product development pipeline to ensure traits and products are durable, broad-spectrum, and effective.

By investigating host-pathogen interactions and translating scientific discoveries into actionable research and development strategies, this position plays a vital role in advancing durable disease-control solutions from early-stage research to practical applications that benefit farmers in the field.

Accountabilities:
Design and implement experiments to evaluate lead performance against key diseases including soybean cyst nematode from collecting inoculum, culture inoculum at appropriate scales, inoculation and disease susceptible/tolerance/resistance ratings in lab and GH environments.

Innovate in new trait discovery and design to tackle business critical disease targets

Develop correlations of disease susceptible/tolerance/resistance ratings in different environments as required by project.

Create and test hypothesis and make recommendations as crop pathology experts

Be the focal point of creating, internalizing and implementing plant pathology techniques and knowledge that enable the organization to meet the needs of the growers

Seek out, identify, communicate and encourage examples of best practice from internal and external sources of information

Qualifications

Ph.D. or equivalent in plant pathology, nematology, genetics, genomics or related field, and 4+ years professional experience working in improving crop resistance against plant parasitic nematodes

Excellent knowledge of molecular immunity and crop genetics

Strong scientific acumen, self-motivated and striving for continuous improvement

Strong sense of ownership in a team environment

Recognized experts in plant pathology and nematology demonstrated by peer reviewed journals.

Solid hands-on experience of working with diverse pathogens including plant parasitic nematodes

Disciplined and rigorous approach to hypothesis-driven research, process improvement and change management

Innovative and critical mind-sets with solid knowledge and skills in order to improve and challenge established ways of working

Desired

Qualifications:

4+ years of hands-on experience applying general and modern pathology sills in dissecting genetic resistance/tolerance in crops.

Demonstrated ability to solve complex problems through innovative pathology approaches

Advanced expertise of principles and activities in genetic and biochemical experimental setup

At least 5+ years of laboratory…