Post-Doc position at the Botany Institute -Phycology, Sao Paulo, Brazil

FAPESP process: 2017/50341-0

Project title: Challenges for biodiversity conservation in the face of climate change, pollution and land use and occupation

Working area: Type specimen multigene barcoding of the scientific collections of seaweeds from Brazil

Number of places: 1

Start: 2019-09-01

Principal investigator: Mutue Toyota Fujii

Unit/Instituition: Núcleo de Pesquisa em Ficologia/Instituto de Botânica

Deadline for submissions: 2019-06-30

Publishing date: 2019-06-06

Locale: Av. Miguel Estéfano, 3687, Àgua Funda, São Paulo

E-mail for proposal submission: mtfujii@ibot.sp.gov.br


Summary
The Research Nucleous in Phycology of the Institute of Botany (IBt) in São Paulo, Brazil, with the support of the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), as part of the Institutional Project “Challenges for biodiversity conservation in the face of climate change, pollution and soil use and occupation”, is selecting one researcher for a post-doctorate fellowship.

Under supervision of Dr Mutue Toyota Fujii, the selected candidate will be dedicated to develop studies to characterize historical and recent scientific collections of seaweeds housed at the Institute of Botany based on morphological and molecular data, such as multigene barcoding.

Description of the institution

The Institute of Botany, belonging to the Department of Infrastructure and Environment (SIMA) of the state of São Paulo, has a long tradition in scientific research directed to know and preserve the plant and fungi biodiversity from the existing biomes in São Paulo. Its scientific staff has different specialties, covering the different areas of Botany, including: taxonomy, anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, ecology and biotechnology. Researchers at the Research Nucleous in Phycology, in particular, develop scientific projects in the following topics: biodiversity, biogeography, ecology, ecophysiology, chemistry of toxins and others metabolites of algae and cyanobacteria.

Activities and requirements regarding the position

It is a sine-qua non condition that the candidate has knowledge on vegetative and reproductive morphology of marine macroalgae, on identification of macroalgae, obtaining DNA from historical and recent material, use of computer programs for sequence editing, phylogenetic analyzes, tree editing and the ability to conduct scientific discussions based on updated scientific publications.

The candidate will also work in the orientation and co-orientation of undergraduate and graduate students, collaborate with other researchers of the Institution in the development of projects and will be responsible for the writing and submission of scientific articles originated from the PD project. Full dedication to the research project will be required.

The following prerequisites are required for the application:

a) PhD in Plant Biodiversity or related area, with emphasis on taxonomy and molecular phylogeny of the seaweeds or corelated area;
b) The title must have been obtained no longer than seven years;
c) Previous knowledge and experience in identifying reproductive and vegetative morphological characters at different hierarchical levels of seaweeds, as well as ability to handle equipment and computational programs for molecular analysis, proven by publication of at least three articles as the first author in high impact refereed journals;
d) It is desirable that candidates already have had post-doctoral experience and carried out courses in phylogenetic analysis;
e) Fluent English.

About the fellowship

The position is available for Brazilian and foreign qualified researchers. The post-doctoral researcher will be granted a fellowship by FAPESP (R$ 7,373.10 per month, for 12 months, renewable for another 12 months), and an amount for technical reserve of 15% of the annual amount of the scholarship to unforeseen expenses directly related to the research activities of the subproject aforementioned. More details about the post-doctoral fellowship granted by FAPESP can be found at www.fapesp.br/en/postdoc.

Documents required for application

- A motivation letter evidencing your intention and pre-requisites required (200 words maximum);
- Curriculum vitae showing your experience and highlighting your publications in indexed scientific journals according to FAPESP instructions (short CV FAPESP Instructions -http://www.fapesp.br/en/6351; 04 pages maximum);
- Two recommendation letters;
- Activity plan (maximum 4 pages) containing Abstract, Introduction, objectives, material and methods, references and chronogram.

The candidates’ curriculum, considering profile and trajectory, with proven experience on the topics described above, scientific quality of the proposal and its compliance with the research line, are key elements in the selection process.

Deadlines for application and result

The application can be submitted exclusively by email, with the required documentation attached as a SINGLE pdf file to Dr Mutue Toyota Fujii (mtfujii@ibot.sp.gov.br) until June 30th. 2019. The beginning of the activities is planned to September / October, 1st 2019. The result will be published on the Institute of Botany’s Graduate School Program (PPG/IBt) website (https://www.infraestruturameioambiente.sp.gov.br/pgibt/) and the candidate will receive notification about the selection process by e-mail, to express interest.