Postdoctoral Fellow, Bioinformatics (Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics Unit) at icipe – African Insect Science for Food and Health

Job Description

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, icipe was established in , to address this very paradox of insects and accompanying challenges. The Centre’s mission is to use insect science for sustainable development, to ensure food security and improve the overall health of communities in Africa by addressing the interlinked problems of poverty, poor health, low agricultural productivity and environmental degradation. Since its founding, icipe has remained committed to developing and disseminating environmentally safe, affordable, acceptable and accessible tools and strategies to control insect pests and disease vectors. icipe’s mandate further extends to the sustainable conservation and utilisation of Africa’s rich biodiversity. icipe is the only international institution in Africa working primarily on arthropods. Therefore capacity building of individual researchers and institutions in Africa is an integral part of all the Centre’s research and development activities. icipe also aims to empower women, harness the youth and build capacity to use, transfer and teach the Centre’s technologies. How we work

Overall purpose of the job

The job holder will offer icipe Bioinformatics Leadership, Data Analysis support, and capacity building.

Specific duties

Provide support for Bioinformatics data analysis within icipe (genomics, transcriptomics, and metagenomics data). Build Bioinformatics capacity within the center by developing and maintaining analysis workflows, establishing infrastructure, and training programs. Develop and maintain bioinformatics software for different research projects, as well as adapt existing code and pipelines and provide programming support. Assist the system administrator with the maintenance of the Bioinformatics server. Partner with other organizations that advance bioinformatics capacity in Africa. Supervise students and interns on relevant projects. Provide support to resource mobilization and proposal development. Establish active Bioinformatics and computational biology research programs that are relevant to icipe’s mission. Support analysis of project next-generation sequencing (Illumina & Oxford Nanopore) data. Support Linux environments, Python, R, git version control, and best practices for reproducible bioinformatics analysis are required. Responsible for the executed activities and outputs, with significant decision-making. Mentor and train staff, develop programs and plan their execution. Supervise staff and students. In charge of budgets and monitoring. Provide information and data to other units. At least two peer-reviewed papers submitted per year. Contribute fundraising for projects as PI and co-applicant, with at least 2 concepts/proposals submitted every year. Contribute to internal and external relations with stakeholders in relation to the scope of their activities.

Requirements

Qualifications

PhD in Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, Computer Science, Genetics, or Genomics. Experience gained in bioinformatics research and training groups. Have extensive knowledge of bioinformatics approaches for analysis of omics data. At least 2 years’ experience working in bioinformatics research (with publication record) and training groups. Experience in Linux environments, Python, R, git version control, and best practices for reproducible bioinformatics analysis.

Reporting

This position reports to the Head of Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics Unit (MBBU).