Post-Doctoral Associate AD - West & Lourenco

The University of Georgia Microbiome Research group is seeking a motivated and hardworking postdoctoral fellow to support and develop novel approaches to collect, analyze, and interpret human microbiome data to better understand the healthy and diseased microbiome. Our group seeks to understand how the microbiome, particularly the gastrointestinal system, changes between diverse individuals spanning multiple age groups, sexes, ethnicities, and other key population demographics. We are also interested in how the microbiome changes in acute and chronic disease and injury states in conditions such as stroke, traumatic brain injury, diabetes, and cancer and how they correlate with condition severity and prognosis.

The postdoctoral fellow position requires expertise in the use of the programming language Python, as well as Python software such as QIIME and QIIME2. In addition, they should have experience using R, including packages such as Phyloseq, DESeq2, ANCOM, and/or PICRUSt. They should also have experience with software and pipelines important for analyzing shotgun sequencing data, metatranscriptomics, proteomics, and/or metabolomics. They should also have familiarity with statistical analyses using linear, mixed, and non-linear models, as well as non-parametric data in order to analyze large data sets. 

The candidate will work primarily in the field of metagenomics and metatranscriptomics; however, the ability to summarize and analyze other type of large datasets (such as population demographics) is desirable.

The successful candidate will work under the direction of Drs. Jeferson Lourenco (https://animaldairy.uga.edu/people/faculty/jeferson-lourenco.html) and Franklin West (https://site.caes.uga.edu/tnrrl/ and https://westlaboratory.org). The UGA Microbiome Research group lead by Drs. Lourenco and West is a highly collaborative team that works with academic, industry, and government partners nationally and internationally. Their research is also highly interdisciplinary and often includes working with microbiologist, nutritionist, clinicians, and other allied health industry experts. Drs. Lourenco and West are committed to the short- and long-term professional development of lab members and will work with the candidate in supporting their career goals.