Assistant or Associate Professor – Space Biology​/Astrobiology

Assistant/Associate Professor

The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences is creating an environment that affirms community across all dimensions. This is a 9-month tenure-accruing position that will be 30% teaching (College of Agricultural and Life Sciences) and 70% research available in the Microbiology and Cell Science Department, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (Space Life Sciences Laboratory, Merritt Island FL). Duties will include teaching a 3-credit course in space life sciences to students at the undergraduate and graduate levels annually, training PhD students, and contributing to the graduate curriculum.

The incumbent will also assist with curriculum development for new BS, MS, and PhD programs in space sciences currently being formed across campus and teach courses within these programs. Research related to the fields of space biology, space biomanufacturing, and/or astrobiology (e.g. extremophile research) are of particular interest. Tenure will accrue in the Department of Microbiology and Cell Science. The faculty member will seek contract and grant funding actively to support their program, with federal competitive grant support being particularly important.

The faculty member will engage in extension activities in their program area.

The successful candidate will engage in scholarly activities related to instruction, including teaching undergraduate and/or graduate courses, advising and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students, participating in curriculum revision and enhancement, seeking funding for the teaching program, supervising undergraduate and graduate research and creative work, publishing teaching-related scholarship, producing learning tools, and engaging in professional development activities related to teaching and advising.

Faculty are encouraged to support and participate in the CALS Honors Program, distance education, and international education.

Because of the IFAS land-grant mission, all faculty are expected to be supportive of and engaged in all three mission areas—research, teaching and extension—regardless of the assignment split specified in the position description.

The University of Florida is a Land-Grant, Sea-Grant, and Space-Grant institution, encompassing virtually all academic and professional disciplines, with an enrollment of more than 56,000 students. UF is a member of The Association of American Universities. The University of Florida Genetics Institute is an interdisciplinary institute that seeks to promote excellence in the areas of genetics and genomics through research, education, and outreach.

The Microbiology and Cell Science Department has 29 tenured or tenure-track faculty, 7 lecturers, 79 PhD students, 700 MS students, and 1,000 undergraduate students. NASA is currently the largest external funding source for Microbiology and Cell Science, and Florida's aerospace sector—centered around Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island—is experiencing rapid growth. The incumbent will be well positioned to establish a research program that takes full advantage of local momentum in the space sciences and astrobiology.

The Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences includes the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station, the Florida Cooperative Extension Service, the College of Veterinary Medicine, the Florida Sea Grant program, and encompasses 16 on-campus academic departments and schools, 12 Research and Educational Centers (REC) located throughout the state, 6 Research sites/demonstration units administered by RECs or academic departments, and Florida Cooperative Extension Service offices in all 67 counties (counties operate and maintain).

UF/IFAS employs nearly 4,500 people, which includes approximately 990 salaried faculty and 1,400 permanent support personnel located in Gainesville and throughout the state. IFAS, one of the nation's largest agricultural and natural resources research and education organizations, is administered by a Senior Vice President and four deans: the Dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the Dean for Extension and Director of the Florida…