Your capabilities
- You have a Master degree in study area biology, biochemistry & bio-technology, bioengineering, nematology, IMBRSEA, Oceans & Lakes) or equivalent. Students graduating this year are also eligible. If you have a foreign diploma, we ask you to obtain equivalence recognition. You can apply for this at NARIC Vlaanderen
- You meet the generic conditions to carry out a PhD Doctoral grants: requirements and regulations - ILVO Vlaanderen
- You have (basic) knowledge of bioinformatics
- You have (basic) experience with programming in e.g. R or Python
- You have (basic) experience with molecular biological work in the lab (DNA techniques)
- You have a strong interest in marine ecology
- You have a good written and spoken knowledge of English
Personal competences
- You prefer to work proactively and hands on.
- You can work independently but are also a team player.
- You are someone who can be flexible
- You have integrity and carry out your work objectively and with great.care
Plus points
- You have experience with microscopy meiofauna
- You are open to joining us on marine campaigns
- You have experience with metagenomics and/or metabarcoding
We offer
We offer you a 4-year PHD fellowship funded by ILVO and UGent with a competitive salary based on your degree. You will be recruited in the salary scale A165 or A166 (depending on your degree). You can make a gross and net calculation of your monthly salary, a holiday bonus and your end-of-year allowance via https://www.vlaanderen.be/werken-voor-vlaanderen/het-salaris. Relevant experience can be considered for financial seniority.
You get a varied, challenging and socially relevant job in a dynamic environment with attractive working conditions and development opportunities. Hybrid work is possible if the position allows it.
Additional: at ILVO: Hospitalization and group (life) insurance, commuting allowance (bicycle – public
transport), meal vouchers (8 €/day) and option to lease a bicycle. A total of 35 paid vacation days based on last year's performance (private scheme). An additional week of holidays are given between Christmas and New Year’s Day. At UGent, there are other benefits.
As a PhD student, you will be responsible for conducting research to develop innovative DNA-based methods to determine meiofauna diversity in seafloor samples. Furthermore, you will validate the developed methods through mock communities and field samples. You will report the results obtained both within the project consortium and with the broader scientific community through presentations and publications in professional journals.
For example, you will be asked to perform the following tasks:
- Collection and cataloging of voucher specimens
- Extracting and preparing DNA for sequencing
- Sequencing DNA with nanopore technology
- Develop bioinformatic pipelines to analyze metagenomic sequence data
- Perform statistical analyses
- Present results at scientific conferences
- Reporting results in scientific journals
