Postdoctoral Fellow, Microbial community engineering

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Priority may be given to the following designated employment equity groups: women, Indigenous Peoples* (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis), persons with disabilities and racialized persons*.

* The Employment Equity Act, which is under review, uses the terminology Aboriginal peoples and visible minorities.

Candidates are asked to self-declare when applying to this hiring process.

Organizational Unit:Clean Energy Innovation

Classification:RO

Duration: 2 years

Language Requirements:English or French

Work arrangements:

• Due to the nature of the work and operational requirements, this position will require full-time physical presence at the NRC work location identified.

At the NRC, we recognize that Indigenous candidates may have important connections to their communities and you may be eligible for an exception to this work arrangement. Alternative work arrangements may also be considered to accommodate candidates as required. To learn more about these options, please contact the NRC Hiring team using the contact information below.

Engineering resilient synthetic microbial consortia for high efficiency ethanol production from syngas.

The NRC is currently working on syngas fermentation for ethanol production, to serve as a replacement for fossil fuels, thus strengthening low‑carbon fuel value chains in Canada.

The objective of this project is to develop synthetic microbial consortia with complementary metabolic functions and capable of converting syngas into ethanol with higher efficiency and stability than conventional monoculture systems. The research will comprise three research components:

• Isolate and adapt microbial strains capable of thriving in syngas environments using enrichment and adaptive laboratory evolution;
• Design synthetic microbial consortia composed of microorganisms with complementary metabolic functions;
• Evaluate the performance of these consortia in laboratory‑scale bioreactors.

The outcomes of this work will advance the emerging field of microbial community engineering and support the development of scalable technologies for sustainable fuel production and carbon circularity.

Within a multidisciplinary team, the successful candidate will lead the design, construction, and experimental evaluation of synthetic microbial consortia.

Ph.D. in Microbiology, Bioinformatics, Environmental Biology, or another relevant discipline.

• Essential:
  Microbiology or molecular biology or microbial ecology with experience in integrating genomic/metagenomic data.
• Assets: Additional experience in metabolic modeling, or microbiome engineering, or bioinformatics, or programming (R or Python).

For a Reliability Status, verification of background information over a period of 5 years is required.

• Fellowships will be for two years contingent on satisfactory progress achieved during the first year.
• Candidates should have obtained a PhD (or equivalent) within the past three years (PhD received on or after July 1, 2024*) or expect to complete their PhD within 6 months of appointment.
• Fellows will work in a lab under the direct supervision of an NRC researcher.

* Exceptions may be considered to recognize personal or family related leave. Please connect with us using the contact information below to discuss in more detail.

The intent of this hiring action is to staff the position at the AsRO level, which is an early-career level position with a salary range of $83,985 to $116,641. This wide range accounts for varying degrees of expertise and impact, and growth within the role.

Salary determination will be based on a thorough evaluation of the successful candidate's prior…