ICRISAT seeks applications from highly motivated and qualified professionals for the global position of Principal Scientist – II – Global Head of Trait Discovery and Delivery to support the Program Office under the Global Research Program Accelerated Crop Improvement. The position can be based in Hyderabad, India, or Nairobi, Kenya. The position will report directly to the Global Research Program Director.

ICRISAT is a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world. Covering 6.5 million square kilometers of land in 55 countries, the semi-arid or dryland tropics has over 2 billion people and 644 million of these are the poorest of the poor. ICRISAT and its partners help empower these disadvantaged populations to overcome poverty, hunger, and a degraded environment through better agricultural production systems.

ICRISAT is headquartered at Patancheru near Hyderabad, India, with two regional hubs and eight country offices in sub-Saharan Africa. ICRISAT envisions prosperous, food-secure, and resilient dryland tropics. Its mission is to reduce poverty, hunger, malnutrition and environmental degradation in the dryland tropics. ICRISAT conducts research on its mandated crops of chickpea, pigeonpea, groundnut, sorghum, pearl millet and finger millet in the arid and semi-arid tropics. The Institute focuses its work on drylands and on protecting the environment. Tropical dryland areas are usually seen as resource-poor and perennially beset by shocks such as drought, thereby trapping dryland communities in poverty and hunger and making them dependent on external aid. Please visit – www.icrisat.org

For the position:

ICRISAT is currently looking for a dynamic and experienced research scientist to take on the role of Head of Trait Discovery and Delivery for the breeding programmes at ICRISAT. The role involves guiding trait focused research and delivery programmes for biotic and abiotic stresses associated with the Drylands. These will be primarily focused around our mandate crops sorghum, pearl millet, finger millet, groundnut, chickpea, pigeonpea and recent work on small millets. However, as ICRISAT is adopting a landscape-based systems approach, we also use other crops species to develop our community-based approaches. This will potentially require other species to be screened for desired traits, such as heat and drought tolerance, water-logging and salt tolerances, etc. The Head of Trait Discovery and Delivery will lead a series of multidisiplinary trait focused research teams. Traits will be assessed for both economic and potential impact before beneficial loci are introgressed into contrasting elite genotypes and tested in relevant locations for GxG and GxE effects. The best lines will be introduced into the breeding programme.

Responsibilities:

• Will lead the current International Traits Teams which include multidisciplinary expertise (from socioeconomics, genebank, cell biology and transformation, crop modeling and physiology, genomics, pre-breeding, bioinformatics, pathology and entomology to seed systems, in addition to the breeders and statistical support) to deliver breeding products according to the agreed Targeted Product Profiles (TPP) in coordination with CGIAR.
• Will lead the development of the Trait discovery and delivery Strategy for ICRISAT for the next decade, particularly on traits to increase genetic gains in farmer’s fields.
• Will work as part of a team with the Global Programme Director ACI, Global Head of Breeding (to be recruited) and Global Head of Seed Systems and the relevant CGIAR Science Programmes to optmise the process of designing, developing and delivering customer-demanded varieties and hybrids.
• Will lead on the development of proposals for funding to both traditional and novel funders, including multidisciplinary expertise to focus on outputs and delivery.
• Will be involved in co-leading institute-wide proposals and research linkage across all three of the research programmes at ICRISAT (Accelerated Crop Improvement, Resilient Farms and Farm Systems, Enabling System Change).
• Will collaborate and coordinate efforts across CGIAR, National Agricultural Research and Extension Systems (NARES) and industry to inculcate best practice at ICRISAT and make our breeding programmes and their outputs and impacts among the best in CGIAR and globally.
• Will be involved in efforts to transfer research activity and delivery responsibility to NARES and other national and regional organisations, where appropriate, and support the co-development of capacity and skills to allow this transfer.
• Will be involved in explaining and presenting ICRISAT’s work, through seminars, talks, conferences and discussions with potential donor.

Qualifications:

Required:

• PhD in a subject related to crop trait dissection/delivery with a Minimum 10 years’ experience in trait discovery
• Preference will be given to PhD in translation of trait discovery to crop breeding Minimum 10 year’s experience in successful transfer of traits into breeding pipelines
• A strong publication record, as evidenced by research papers in refereed journals.
• Experience of working in a multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural team and in working with a wide range of stakeholders and interest to work in interdisciplinary team
• Ability and willingness to participate in field work and travel extensively in across Africa and Asia
• Should have the aptitude to work collegially and collaboratively in diverse, multicultural environments
• Fluency in spoken and written English is essential; understanding of local language is desirable
• Strong statistical knowledge of computer applications and software for data management and analysis.
• Ability to work independently with minimal daily supervision and proactively

General: This is a contractual position for a period of 36 months.

How to apply:

Applicants should apply on or before 20 November 2024 with their latest Resume, and the names and contact information of three references that are knowledgeable about their professional qualifications and work experience. All applications will be acknowledged; however, only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

ICRISAT is an equal opportunity employer.

Key Skills: Genomic Data Analysis, Trait Mapping, Molecular Breeding, Quantitative Genetics, Bioinformatics, Statistical Modeling, Crop Improvement

Additional/Preferred Skills: Translational science, genetics, trait discovery, GxG and GxE analysis

Preferred Qualifications: Ph.D. in Genetics, Postdoctoral research experience in Plant Biology, Specialization in Plant Breeding

Preferred Industry Experience: n/a

Why ICRISAT?

ICRISAT offers a rewarding career opportunity in dryland agricultural research to have a lasting impact on millions of lives and communities. The state of the art research infrastructure with high performance culture, ICRISAT provides global exposure and learning. For more details, visit www.icrisat.org