Adam R. Rivers, PhD

Computational biologist and microbial ecologist using microbiome data and machine learning to create safe, productive, and sustainable agricultural systems.

This position has been filled, it is visible for archival purposes.

We will be filling this position as soon as possible, for full consideration please apply by September 20, 2021

The Research

Our lab has a postdoc opening to develop predictive models of soil microbe interactions from metagenomic and exo-metabolomic time-series data. We have time-series data on the rhizospheres of resistant and susceptible tomato plants infected by the model soil pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum. We are applying neural relational inference and Bayesian networks to identify microbial and metabolite interactions and gain a more mechanistic understanding of the ecosystem.

There are also opportunities to lead projects on the Bayesian optimization of microbial consortia, protein expression optimization with tunable promoters, and work in structural metagenomics using Alphafold and Rosetta.

Position Info

The position is supervised by Dr. Chris Reisch at The University of Florida and funded through a collaborative agreement with the USDA, Agricultural Research Service. The postdoc will work closely with Dr. Adam Rivers at the USDA on this project. Pay for this position is $66,400 per year plus benefits.

Desired Skills

A successful applicant will likely have experience in microbiology, ecology, computer science, or statistics. The candidate should be comfortable using Python or R and have some experience with version control, statistics, and machine learning concepts. We recognize that each person has a unique mix of experience, individual strengths, and experiences and we encourage any applicant with a strong record of research productivity and experience to apply.

Interested? Email me today The official position link will be up on the UF Jobs site soon.