Senior Research Fellow, Insect Social Behavior

A Senior Research Fellow position is available in the Laboratory of Assoc Prof Ajai Vyas at the School of Biological Sciences, Nanyang Technological University.

Job Description

• Collect ant colonies (Camponotus) from the field, establish and maintain these in laboratory conditions
• Perform individual-level manipulations on ants, including drug microinjections, dissections of ovary and brain
• Design and perform behavioral experiments on laboratory-established ant colonies, using an ad-hoc AI-based video tracking system recently developed within the research group of Assoc Prof Ajai Vyas
• Train the AI via building models using object detection models and convolutional neural networks (YOLO)
• Program the video tracking system according to experimental needs (Python)
• Conduct statistical analyses on collected data (R)
• Perform molecular analyses on insect samples (DNA extraction, PCR, qPCR)
• Analyze genomic data
• Write scientific manuscripts

Job Requirements

• PhD degree in Animal Behavior, 7-10 years research experience after PhD
• Prior lab experience in behavioral tests on social insects
• Experience in wet lab routine procedures and insect manipulation (microinjection, dissection)
• Prior experience in statistical analyses using R
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English are required, along with ample experience with scientific writing

We regret that only shortlisted candidates will be notified.