PhD Thesis “Prediction and Functional Validation of Microbiome Modulators Improved Soil-Plant Resilience

The AIT Austrian Institute of Technology is Austria’s largest Research and Technology Organisation (RTO). We aim to transform scientific excellence into innovation with impact. Together with our partners, we develop technologies and solutions for a sustainable, resilient, and digitalized future, strengthening Europe’s competitiveness and technological sovereignty. Our international teams combine cutting‑edge research with strong implementation expertise to create measurable value for industry and society.

Our competence unit Bioresources located in Tulln (in immediate vicinity to Vienna) invites applications for a PhD Thesis position. Our team includes world‑leading experts in deciphering plant‑microbe interactions with elaborated methodological skills and profound scientific insights in the ecology and physiology of fungi, bacteria and plants. As part of our digital transformation strategy, the AIT Research Acceleration Platform (ARA) of which our Bioresources team is a critical part, integrates cutting‑edge process automation, digital infrastructure, and data governance to accelerate scientific breakthroughs across disciplines such as novel battery materials, energy conversion and storage materials, microbiome engineering in agriculture and health or light‑metal alloys.

The PhD project will focus on functional validation of microbiome modulators for soil‑plant systems and development of prediction models to facilitate data‑driven developments in the future
. Microbiome modulators, such as microbial strains or defined microbial communities (DMCs), are intended to shift microbiome composition and function toward beneficial traits such as improved plant stress tolerance, nutrient availability or soil health.

The central objective of the PhD is to establish a realistic and reproducible verification workflow for soil‑plant microbiome modulation
. The work will combine plant trials under controlled conditions, microbiome profiling, plant phenotyping, integration of environmental metadata and statistical modelling. The candidate will help to develop criteria to decide whether a predicted microbiome modulation effect is experimentally supported, reproducible and relevant for agricultural or environmental applications.

• You contribute to the ARA‑BIO research acceleration platform by developing a first functional verifier for soil‑plant microbiome modulators
  , as part of a research approach for environmental and agricultural applications.
• You curate and structure microbiome, plant phenotype and environmental metadata for selected soil‑plant use cases.
• You select candidate microbiome modulators based on existing strains, DMCs and available data.
• You conduct controlled tests to assess the effects on plant performance, microbiome composition and functional read‑outs.
• You apply statistical and machine‑learning approaches to link microbiome patterns, metadata and phenotypic outcomes.
• You define experimental pass/fail criteria, assay limitations and failure modes for a first ARA‑BIO functional verifier.
• You collaborate with interdisciplinary teams working on data‑driven microbiome solutions, improved crop production and research acceleration platforms
  , while benefiting from AIT’s expertise in microbiome profiling, plant‑microbe interactions, phenotyping and microbial product development.
• You prepare scientific high‑quality publications and contribute to project reports, presentations and stakeholder communication, with your findings also serving as a potential basis for development of follow‑up projects
  .

Your qualifications as an Ingenious Partner:

• Master’s degree in…