Post Master’s RA – Algal Biology

Overview

At PNNL,our core capabilities are dividedamongmajor departments that werefer to as Directorates within the Lab,focused on a specific area of scientific research orother function, with its own leadership teamand dedicated budget.

Our Science & Technologydirectoratesinclude National Security,Integrated Discovery Sciences, and Energy  addition,we have an Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory,a Department of Energy, Office of Science user facility housed on the PNNL campus.

The Integrated Discovery Sciences Directorate (IDSD) leads fundamental research across biology, chemistry, Earth and environmental sciences, materials science, advanced computing, artificial intelligence, quantum information science, mathematics, autonomy, and DOE national user facilities. Our vision is to accelerate scientific discovery by observing, understanding, simulating, predicting, and controlling dynamic biotic-abiotic processes and interactions withincomplex biological, chemical, material, and Earth systems. We intentionally connect disciplines to advance fundamental discovery science, develop transformative scientific capabilities, and address the nation's most important challenges in energy, environmental resilience, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, health, and national security.

The Environmental Molecular Sciences Division iscomprisedof 18 interdisciplinary research teams focused on deciphering molecular-level interactions driving biological and environmental processes across temporal and spatial scales. Through computational analysis and modeling, these findings contribute to predictive understanding of how systems respond to environmental perturbations thus enabling solutions to the nation’s energy, environmental, and human health challenges. The division also manages the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a Department of Energy, Officeof Science user facility housed on the PNNL campus that accelerates the research of scientists around the world by providing access to world-classexpertise, instrumentation, and computational resources.

The Functional and Systems Group within the Environmental Molecular Sciences Division at PNNL seeks a versatile researcher to lead work on microalgal crop protection and strain improvement using modern molecular and chemical biology techniques, including adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE). The successful candidate will:

• Identify and characterize microalgal pests, including chytrids and other fungal parasites, oomycetes, amoebae, rotifers, ciliates, algicidal bacteria, and viruses, that threaten productivity and crop stability in large-scale cultivation, using microscopy, flow cytometry, culture-based isolation, and molecular diagnostics including DNA/RNA extraction, PCR, qPCR, amplicon and metagenomic sequencing workflows.
• Characterize host–pest interactions at the cellular and molecular level (attachment, infection dynamics, grazing pressure, host response) through controlled co-culture challenge assays, and establish early-detection and monitoring strategies that support pond crop protection decisions.
• Advance strain productivity and lipid improvement by investigating genetic and phenotypic mechanisms underlying tolerance to light, oxygen, salinity, temperature, and nutrient limitation, and by uncovering genetic modifications that enhance lipid and high-value bioproduct accumulation for biofuels and bioproducts applications.
• Analyze data using molecular biology, biochemistry, analytical chemistry, and bioinformatics to link phenotypic and genetic changes to pest resistance, stress tolerance, and productivity; generate datasets supporting systems biology efforts such as genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs) of biomass and bioproduct formation.
• Communicate and collaborate with interdisciplinary and multi-institutional teams (microbiologists, engineers, computational biologists, environmental scientists); contribute to publications, technical reports, and presentations; work and maintain strict laboratory safety, biosafety, and regulatory compliance.

** Position is onsite only, and located in Richland, WA.**

Minimum Qualifications:

• Candidates must have received a Master’s degree within the past 24 months or within the next 8 months from an accredited college or university.

Preferred Qualifications:

• MS degree in microbiology, marine biology, chemical engineering, molecular biology or a related field.
• Experience with culture health monitoring, contamination and pest detection, and microbial community characterization: sterile and anaerobic technique, light microscopy, flow cytometry, qPCR, ddPCR, and 16S rRNA sequencing workflows.
• Familiarity with interpreting mixed-community sequence data through sequence alignment, BLAST, taxonomic and phylogenetic analysis, and biological database searching (NCBI, Uni Prot) to identify and track pest organisms.
• Experience designing and executing ALE and phenotypic optimization experiments targeting stress tolerance,…