A senior fellowship opportunity is available at the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) in Cincinnati, OH. This appointment will be served in the Environmental Measurements & Monitoring Division (EMMD). The fellowship is part of an EPA effort to use fundamental advancements in genomic tools and our deepening understanding of the breadth of microbial diversity to develop the microbiome as a tool for assessing water quality, both in terms of ecosystem structure/function and human health impacts from waterborne disease. The microbiome is relatively simple to analyze and if patterns/ markers within this community be consistently related human health risks (presence of indicators of fecal contaminants or human pathogens themselves) then it may be a more efficient, unifying approach for aquatic monitoring. Metagenomic profiles of the microbiome of various environmental matricies (e.g., water, wastewater, etc.) are being mined for relationships to the range of other water quality descriptors collected as part the laboratory's on-going research efforts. The Associate will work with the EMMD team to process/analyze/publish results from this on-going study and to assist in further development of the conceptual framework for this new research area.

 

Keywords:

Metagenomics; Sequencing; Bioinformatics; Nucleic acids; Microbiome; Microbial diversity;

Citizenship:  Open to U.S. citizens, permanent residents and non-U.S. citizens

Level:  Open only to Senior applicants