Thursday, February 13, 2025
Job opening

Job Opening: MSCA Doctoral Position on Symbiotic Agriculture (Reggio Emilia, Italy)

The University of Modena & Reggio Emilia is looking for a PhD Candidate in the framework of a MSCA project “CoFund – FutureData4EU“. The doctoral programme title is: “Management and conservation of the soil microbiota for sustainable and eco-efficient production” and the doctoral position title is: “Increasing productivity, sustainability and ecoefficiency in organic farming by using microorganisms to promote plant growth and control plant pathogens (symbiotic agriculture)”.

Increasing productivity, sustainability and eco-efficiency in organic farming is possible by using microorganisms able to promote plant growth and control plant pathogens. To develop innovative microbial-based pesticides and implement protocols for their application in cropping systems, both their efficiency and their environmental safety should be tackled. Particularly, the environmental fate of beneficial microbial communities in the agri-environment and their impact on the population structure and biodiversity of natural microbiota should be assessed. Finally, the use of new ‘omics’ technologies to monitor the soil-plant system will be important for the generation of large datasets, and the resulting multilayer information will be possibly implemented in AI algorithms for early recognition of plant diseases, abiotic and nutritional stresses.

Therefore, the following research goals are proposed:

  • Development and implementation of protocols and procedures for the safe use and distribution of microbial biocontrol agents in cropping systems;
  • Development of specific equations describing the dynamics of microbial communities introduced and/or present in agricultural environments;
  • Development of numerical algorithms able to represent and organize large sets of biological data for the description, efficacy, and safety of microbial inputs into and along the agri-food value chains.

The prospective candidate is a recent graduate in any subject related to Plant Pathology and Disease Control, Agronomy, Microbiology and Microbial Genetics, Molecular Biology. He/she has a deep knowledge of Molecular Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Interactions. He/she possesses technical skills to conduct his/her research in both Plant Pathology and Crop Production labs (isolation and characterisation of bacteria and fungi; isolation, purification, and amplification of nucleic acids; metagenomics; population genetics). Knowledge of computerised image analysis and bioinformatics would be greatly appreciated. Soft skills will complement the prospective candidates, as the ability to interact with others, work in a multicultural and multinational team, willingness to actively participate to seminars, workshops, conferences, ability to plan his/her work agenda and prioritize experiments and deliver results at the planned time; ability to supervise graduate students and technical staff

Place: Reggio Emilia (Italy)
Potential supervisors: Emilio Stefani, Enrico Francia, Davide Giovanardi
Contract Duration: 3 years

More information can be found at https://site.unibo.it/futuredata4eu/en/phd-program.

The deadline for application has passed.