Job Vacancies at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)

Project ID No: DDG-R4D/H/GRC/06/21
Duty Station: Ibadan, IITA Headquarters, Nigeria, Oyo

Position Responsibilities

• Provide essential oversight, leadership and management of genetic resources conservation and research, at the Genetic Resources Centre, Ibadan, in the context of One CGIAR.
• Secure maintenance and preservation of the international collections maintained at IITA and update standard international operational procedures as appropriate.
• Maintain a strong research program on secure conservation methods for clonally propagated crops.
• Develop a strong research program on germplasm characterization, combining   agro-morphological and molecular data with the objective of a) evaluating the diversity of the collections and b) developing decision support tools for optimization of germplasm management.
• Develop germplasm evaluation programs in collaboration with respective breeding programs.
• Work closely with the Germplasm Health Unit on germplasm indexing and sanitation.
• Supervise all germplasm exchanges and ensure harmony with the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.
• Contribute to capacity building in the conservation and use of plant genetic resources worldwide.
• Liaise with Global Crop Diversity Trust and other work within the Genetic Innovation Science Area of One CGIAR particularly in terms of use of germplasm in breeding programme and market intelligence.
• Lead a programme of work on enhancing germplasm use both directly and through breeding with a focus on climate change and nutrition.
• Establish or strengthen collaboration with national partners and Advanced Research Institutes.
• Communicate research results through peer-reviewed high-impact journals and other media.
• Participate in mobilization of resources to support research activities.
• Collaborate with breeding programs to enhance germplasm use.
• Take part in the development of global conservation strategies.
• Perform any other job-related duties as may be assigned by the supervisor.

Education Qualifications

• The candidate should possess a Ph.D.in Plant Breeding, Genetics, Conservation Biology or related fields from a highly recognized university.

Core Competencies:

• A minimum of 8 years of experience in genetic resource conservation and use of seed and clonally propagated collections.
• Familiarity with in situconservation.
• Experience in management of Genebank operations with multiple species.
• Publication in high ranking scientific journals on ex situconservation of plant genetic resources, genetic resource diversity assessment or evaluation, or conservation of clonally propagated species.
• Experience with database management and application of genomic tools in germplasm management.
• Ability to create strong and sustainable links with diverse partners.
• Ability to work as a member of a multi-disciplinary team in a cross-cultural environment.
• Excellent leadership,interpersonal, and team building skills.
• Knowledge of sub-Saharan Africa and good contacts with NARS scientists in the region is an added advantage.
• Proficiency with written and spoken English; knowledge of French is an asset.

Remuneration
IITA offers a competitive remuneration package paid in US dollars.

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Project ID No: IITA-HR-NRS2020-018
Location: Ibadan, Oyo
Contract: 1-year renewable contract.
Recruitment Type: National (1-year renewable contract)

Duties

• Successful candidate will among other things perform the following duties:
• Co-lead the implementation of projects objectives and deliverables through quantitative and qualitative gender-focused analyses within the ‘Nextgen cassava’ and ‘RTB foods’ projects in cooperation with Nigerian Root Crop Research Institute (NCRI).
• Develop qualitative (major) and quantitative (minor) tools and analyse data using software such as SPSS, Nvivo, STATA, ATLAS.ti and R and make conference presentations, author publications in peer-review journals, and develop posters, blogs, and briefs
• Manage survey data, organise, train and supervise staff involved in quantitative and qualitative data collection, entry and cleaning
• Design, lead and carry out fieldwork in rural communities for gender focused qualitative (a.o. intra-household, and within cooperatives) research and in relation to the citizen science Tricot approach for cassava variety evaluation with stakeholders
• Develop and adopt new gender responsive methodologies and qualitative research tools and develop communication and training materials such as protocols/guides, audio and audio-visual content to disseminate gender approaches and research findings at scientific conferences on behalf of project team and scientist
• Co-lead the implementation of a systematic customer and product profiling incorporating gender aspects for each value chain actor to foster gender responsive cassava breeding in Nigeria and support cases studies in Vietnam and Zambia as part of the RTB CRP “Golden egg” initiative
• Facilitate interdisciplinary meetings and cooperation with bio-physical scientists, food scientist, and colleagues in social/gender science for joined article and methodology development
• Support project supervisors/bio-physical scientists on proposal development for resource mobilization
• Mentor graduate trainee (NYSC corpers) and supervise students working on gender related projects
• Be a resource person at gender sensitization workshops with excellent presentation and communication skills
• Lead the preparation and reporting of the gender/social science team’s monthly activities to scientist and project lead
• Additional roles assigned as a member of the IITA gender science network and RTB Foods gender working group
• Perform any other additional roles assigned as a member of the IITA gender science network and RTB Foods gender working group.

Qualification

• Masters Degree in, Food Science / Technology, or related field with minimum of six(6) years’ experience in a well-structured environment or donor funded organization.

Competencies
The ideal candidate must:

• Have experience with qualitative and quantitative data analysis tools such as Nvivo, Atlas.ti, SPSS and familiar with database equal to Cassava base (crop ontologies) and Climb Mob data platforms (www.ClimMob.net) and have rudimentary knowledge of R.
• Have excellent social skills in building contacts of trust with key persos in rural communities such as community leaders, farmers and processors.

Remuneration

• We offer highly competitive salary with equally attractive benefits and excellent working conditions in a pleasant campus environment.
• 
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Ref: IITA-HR-NRS2020-018
Location: Ibadan, Oyo
Recruitment Type: National (2-year renewable contract)

Duties
Successful candidate will among other things perform the following duties:

• Monitor, supervise,screen, maintainand analyzedatafor the cassava breeding unit;
• Carry out analysis of experimental data such as: analysis of variance for comparing genotype performance for single location and multi-environment GXE trials using standard applications in SAS, R, and GGEBiplot software.
• Develop appropriate selection indices for rapid advancement of cassava breeding trials including rapid data processing from harvest to selection to accommodate the perishable nature of cassava planting material.
• Work closely with molecular geneticist and biometricians to integrate field and molecular data for genetic mapping studies.
• Backstop research supervisors in development of experimental designs to apply appropriate statistical model for analysis.
• Prepare periodic status summaries on data analysis activities.
• Contribute to preparation of reports, publications and visual presentation of analysis results.
• Contribute to international cassava database development for NEXTGEN cassava Project.
• Contribute to the adoption of field data collection systems including the use of electronic devices and provide training to the cassava breeding community on the use of these devices.
• Contribute to development and maintenance of IITA cassava breeding database including curation of pedigrees, clone names, genotypic and phenotypic data.
• Conduct capacity development regarding data management and analysis for cassava breeding staff, NARs partners, and other cassava partners.
• Provide backstopping support to IITA hub breeding regarding data management and analysis.
• Represent IITA at international meetings on data management.
• Responsible for development and maintenance of cassava ontologies.
• Integration of CG core meta data schema into cassavabase.org.
• Perform any other job-related task as may be assigned by the supervisor.

Qualification

• Master’s in Computer Science, Statistics or Agricultural Science or related field;
• With minimum of six (6) years’ experience in data management for a plant breeding program in a well-structured environment or donor funded organization.

Competencies
The ideal candidate must:

• Be proficient in the use of MS Access, MS Excel, statistical packages (SAS, STATA, SPSS, R, METAR, AGDR, GEAR, PBTOOL, GenStat, ASREML, GBEBiplot), computer programming languages (JAVA), DMBS (POSTGRESQL)., ontologies tools (OBO Edit) and Protégé.
• Have good understanding of experimental design, statistics and its principle in plant breeding and agronomy practices as required.
• Ability to work under pressure, good communication and interpersonal skills.
• Be able to work under minimal supervision.

Remuneration

• We offer highly competitive salary with equally attractive benefits and excellent working conditions in a pleasant campus environment.

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