Post Doctoral Associate

Post Doctoral Associate

DLS Molecular Biology & Bioche

$63,968-$75,564

The final salary offer may be determined by several factors, including, but not limited to, the candidate’s qualifications, experience, and expertise, and availability of department or grant funds to support the position. We also take into consideration market benchmarks, if and when appropriate, and internal equity to ensure fair compensation relative to the university’s broader compensation structure. We are committed to offering competitive and flexible compensation packages to attract and retain top talent.

• Medical, prescription drug, and dental coverage
• Paid vacation, holidays, and various leave programs
• Competitive retirement benefits, including defined contribution plans and voluntary tax-deferred savings options
• Employee and dependent educational benefits (when applicable)
• Life insurance coverage
• Employee discount programs

The Kaelber lab located in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry on Rutgers’ Busch Campus, within walking distance of research buildings for computer science and medicine as well as fundamental biology is searching for a Post Doctoral Associate. Prof. Kaelber is the 3

DEM Advisor to the RCSB PDB (Protein Data Bank). The postdoctoral associate will attend relevant seminar series on this and other campuses of Rutgers related to origins of life research, artificial intelligence methods development, evolutionary biology, and computational biology.

Prof. Kaelber is recruiting a “dry lab” scientist for methods development in evolutionary biology. The postdoctoral associate will develop and benchmark methods for evolutionary analysis by the comparison of protein structures, conduct rigorous evaluations of the concordance of computational results to validation sets, and then determine the origin of life on earth. Mentorship of 1-2 undergraduate students will be encouraged. The postdoctoral associate will collaborate with “wet lab” experimentalists in the research group and with interdisciplinary collaborating scientists.

Elements of the experimental approach will include:
Bayesian reconstruction of events on billion-year timescales, determination of optimal embeddings and encodings for protein structures, multiple structural alignments, relevant artificial intelligence (AI) approaches such as CNNs and transformers, and protein structure predictions.

Full Time

26FA0747

09/04/2026

Ph.D. in life sciences, chemical sciences or other related field.

Excellence in at least two of the following are required; structural biology, programming and high-performance computing, bioinformatics or evolutionary theory.

Required skills are; commitment to ethical conduct of research, self-motivation and independence, good documentation habits and a track record of productive scientific results

High-performance computing; cloud computing; local workstations.

Work will be performed in an office setting. Applicants must be physically capable of interfacing with computers at a swift rate.

All offers of employment are contingent upon successful completion of all pre-employment screenings.

Under Policy 100.3.1 Immunization Policy for Covered Individuals , if employment will commence during Flu Season, Rutgers University may require certain prospective employees to provide proof that they are vaccinated against Seasonal Influenza for the current Flu Season, unless the University has granted the individual a medical or…