4-year contract as a PhD student

The Agricultural Ecology group at the University Rey Juan Carlos is offering a 4-year contract as a PhD student within the programme "PROYECTOS DE GENERACIÓN DE CONOCIMIENTO" of the Ministry of Science and Innovation.

The PhD student will be enrolled in the project Evolution of wild plants in diverse communities and its application in agriculture (CROWILUTION) (PID2022-136830OB-I00) under supervision of the PI: Christian Schöb ORCID and Co-PI Natalia González Benítez ORCID. The candidate will participate in research on processes that promote the functioning and ecosystem services of diversified crop systems with the aim to reduce the environmental footprint of agriculture and move towards more sustainable food production. The candidate is expected to actively participate in all the processes involved in the elaboration and development of a doctoral thesis: design and preparation of experiments, collection and analysis of samples, statistical analysis, preparation of manuscripts, presentations at conferences and outreach activities. Field work will be conducted at the Experimental Research Station Aprisco in Monfragüe (Cáceres) with sowing, measurements of functional traits, maintenance of the experiment, harvesting, and seed cleaning with threshing machine and sieves. This requires regular and occasionally longer stays at the field site and tolerance of occasionally adverse weather conditions (wind, rain, heat, intense solar radiation) in an otherwise unique natural environment. Laboratory and office work will be located at the Móstoles campus of the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Madrid), which offers state-of-the-art research facilities and a very stimulating research environment for this project. The tasks in the lab include extraction and amplification of DNA from seeds and preparation of samples for sequencing.

For the evaluation, we will positively value:

- Ambition (in the best sense of the word) to do a PhD thesis to develop an academic career, passion for science and continuous learning and desire for personal and professional growth.

- Graduation in Biology and related careers (Biotechnology, CAAC, Agricultural Engineering or Forestry).

- Master's degree in Agroecology, Ecology, Conservation, Biodiversity or related fields.

- Knowledge of agronomy, agroecology, soil science, community ecology and bioinformatics.

- Proficiency in English.

- Knowledge of statistics in R.

If you are interested to join a vibrant research community at the Biodiversity Area of the University Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, please send your application as a single document in pdf format containing i) a motivation letter, ii) an updated CV in any format, and iii) contacts (emails) of two reference persons, with the subject "CROWILUTION" to Christian.Schob@urjc.es. If you would like to request any further information about the position, please do not hesitate to get in contact using the same email address.