The U.S. Geological Survey’s Southwest Biological Science Center in Flagstaff, AZ is seeking a recent graduate (i.e., who earned a degree within the last 12 months) to assist with population genetic, landscape genetic, and climate related research projects. The projects involve western U.S. plant species that are either rare/threatened/endangered or commonly used for restoration. Research questions revolve around recent and historical demographic trends, population structure/phylogeography, inferences of putative adaptation to regional environmental gradients, taxonomy, climatic factors influencing restoration success, etc. Many of the data are in hand and the candidate will immediately contribute to all stages of project development/execution. The candidate will predominantly work in the laboratory and office, but some field work is anticipated. This position is open to U.S. citizens and is funded for 12 months – extensions are dependent upon future funding. The pay rate will be $26.51/hour (taxes are not taken out and will have to be managed by the candidate). Due to the nature of the position, benefits are not available. The candidate must pass a federal background check, a pre-employment physical, and have a clean driving record.

Expectations:

–       Authorship/co-authorship on multiple peer-reviewed publications

–       Work well in a collaborative setting

–       Consistent and excellent attention to detail

–       Work in Flagstaff, AZ and start approximately 4-6 weeks after selection

Minimum qualifications:

–       Master’s degree

–       Experience constructing next-generation sequencing libraries

–       Programming and data analysis skills in R

–       Ability to manage/work with big data (genetic and climate)

–       Experience with genetics pipelines/analyses applicable to SNPs, for example: Stacks, ipyrad, structure (or similar), PCA and sPCA, fastsimcoal2, LFMM, Procrustes, etc.

–       Excellent writing skills

–       Ability/willingness to conduct field work under harsh conditions in remote areas

Desired qualifications:

–       Demonstrated ability to publish in peer-reviewed journals

–       Experience constructing species distribution models using current methodologies

–       Knowledge of southwestern U.S. plant communities and natural history

–       Experience with other programming/scripting languages (Python, Perl, C++, shell, etc.)

–       Experience working on the terminal to run programs, including on remote high-performance computing clusters (managed by slurm)

If interested, please submit a cover letter and CV (including contact information for three references) to Rob Massatti (rmassatti@usgs.gov). This position is open until filled.

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