Ph.D. fellowship available
The number of graduate-level plant breeders produced annually by U.S. universities has fallen well below the level required by the public and private sectors. At the same time, the challenges facing plant breeders, including the need for improved levels of drought stress tolerance, have never been greater.
A Ph.D. fellowship is available to work with Drs. John McKay and Pat Byrne at Colorado State University. We are looking for a highly motivated individual with a solid training in Evolution, Plant Physiology and Genomics and with the demonstrated ability to carry out outstanding research. The applied goal of the project is to improve the drought stress tolerance of winter wheat by incorporating germplasm primarily from the wild relative Aegilops tauschii. The fundamental goal of the project is to identify and physiologically characterize genes and genomic regions underlying variation in yield and it’s sensitivity to drought by combining plant breeding with genome-wide molecular techniques and whole-plant physiology.
The position is available January 2009, but the start is flexible. The successful applicant will participate in a short-course in breeding for drought adaptation, which will take place in June 2010.
Salary and benefits are competitive, and CSU is an excellent academic environment for the study of plant biology. Our lab group has excellent interactions with colleagues in bioinformatics, plant physiology, ecology, evolutionary genetics and molecular biology. Fort Collins is located on the Front Range of the Rockies and is ranked highly among great places to live.
This position is restricted to US citizens and permanent residents.
If you are interested in this position, please send a letter of interest and a C.V. in pdf format via e-mail to jkmckay@colostate.edu
This training program is funded by a grant from the USDA-CSREES
