Research Scientist (Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology)
Berkeley Lab (LBNL) addresses the world’s most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab’s scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
Position Summary:
Berkeley Lab’s Environmental Genomics & Systems Biology Division has an opening for a Research Scientist. As a Research Scientist you will be responsible for contributing to the dissemination of genomics annotation software development project. You will conduct dry-lab research describing the key genetic elements contributing to the development, viability, and successful functioning of an organism, across a broad phylogenetic spread from human to microbial. You will be the central point of contact for representing the genomic research community’s needs and perspective, and accept responsibility for ensuring that the project is addressing genomic researcher’s requirements. While this position primarily requires a depth of understanding in biology, the successful candidate must be capable of working productively with software developers to develop new visualization approaches and evaluate analytical results for accuracy.
Carrying out research within an established framework, you will supervise technical staff, know who is working on different deliverables and what requirements these deliverables must meet. You will interact with teams of genomic researchers, both at LBNL and internationally, provide training on the installation, implementation, and use of the genomic tools that are developed. The Research Scientist must stay abreast of new discoveries in the realm of genomics and quickly adapt and extend the features of the software to incorporate this new knowledge. Prospectively you must show the potential for developing new initiatives and contribute to the submission of proposals to provide the financial resources needed for the project. Lastly, you must demonstrate the ability to effectively communicate your research results in peer-reviewed literature and at scientific meetings.
What You Will Do:
- Work productively with software developers to ensure delivery of effective genomic curation tools; troubleshooting newly released tools to ensure they are working without errors, prioritizing enhancements, and the incremental addition of new capabilities.
- Represent the genomic research that the community needs and perspective to ensure the software meets their requirements, including active responsiveness to new biological advances.
- Develop genomic annotation for best practice guidelines and training material, covering the range of issues faced by the genomes of different organisms.
- Work with the wider genomics community on standards initiatives, community curation strategies, and developing approaches to effectively annotate as broad a range of organisms as possible (both structurally and functionally).
- Provide clearly written online instructions and guidelines demonstrating the features of the tools, how and when to employ these tools, and the optimal approach to take for a genomic research team’s strategy.
- Successfully guide an external genomic research team’s strategy for accurately and completely describing the encoded elements of a genome and their functional interpretation.
- Mentor graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, by devising projects based on original analysis, maximizing their skills and abilities addressing these projects and helping them delegate responsibilities appropriately.
- Increase community awareness of the tool through presentations and publication in peer-reviewed journals.
- Contribute to publications, present scientific findings at seminars and conferences.
- May work on grants and proposals.
What is Required:
- Must have a PhD, or equivalent direct experience (5 years) in genetics or closely related discipline.
- Strong background in the evolutionary aspects of genomics
- Ability to clearly communicate biological requirements to software developers, both orally and in writing.
- Project management skills.
- Experiences as a biocurator; evaluating, extracting and summarizing pertinent biological information into a computational representation.
- Organizational skills, with the ability to recommend creative solutions to moderately complex problems.
- Successful record of developing partnerships and collaborative relationships with research laboratories.
- Demonstrated understanding of the scientific and social challenges involved in genomic curation and creative thoughts for addressing these.
Additional Desired Qualifications:
- Website development and maintenance, some software development experience preferred.
The posting shall remain open until the position is filled.
Notes:
- This is a full time career appointment.
- Full-time, M-F, exempt (monthly paid) from overtime pay.
- Salary is commensurate with experience.
- This position is contingent on the successful completion of a background check.
- West Berkeley Biocenter (Potter St.) — Bldg. 977, 717 Potter St., Berkeley, CA.
Equal Employment Opportunity: Berkeley Lab is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, or protected veteran status. Berkeley Lab is in compliance with the Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination Provision under 41 CFR 60-1.4. Click here to view the poster and supplement: "Equal Employment Opportunity is the Law."