103714: Postdoctoral Fellow – Data Science and Management

The Organization

The Alliance of Bioversity International and International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) delivers research-based solutions that harness agricultural biodiversity and sustainably transform food systems to improve people’s lives. Alliance solutions address the global crises of malnutrition, climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation.

The Alliance works with local, national, and multinational partners across Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and Africa, and with the public and private sectors. The Alliance is part of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future, dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources and ecosystem services.

About the position

The focus of this position is supporting the data curation for the Periodic Table of Food Initiative (PTFI). The project is global in nature and therefore the responsibilities encompass data curation of foods, including assigning scientific names, ontologies and, other data curation fields for foods originating all over the world. The position will also support the PTFI more broadly, including contributing to scientific and public facing dissemination materials, contributing to grant writing, and presenting at scientific events.

Key duties & responsibilities

• Lead curation activities for the metadata associated with foods at PTFI
• Lead assignment of Access and Benefits Sharing (ABS) status for PTFI foods in consultation with legal team
• Draft, conduct peer review and finalize regenerative agriculture and climate modules and work with MarkerLab to integrate into PTFI data
• Contribute to the identification of research needs of the PTFI
• Prepare and publish peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts and create scientific materials for outreach
• Participate and contribute to relevant discussions and team meetings, engaging with subject- area specialists, and other relevant parties to strengthen scientific research of the PTFI
• Represent PTFI in scientific conferences and forums to showcase the initiative research and its impact
• Contribute to fund-raising efforts through participation to project proposal writing
• Maintain the curation and organization of the PTFI database of foods, food composition and associated metadata.
• Regular and effective communication with MarkerLab staff to ensure that newly curated data is uploaded and correct.
• Continued expansion of optional metadata modules, including agriculture and climate data, synchronized with current data.
• Contribution to the wider dissemination and fundraising goals of the PTFI.

Required qualifications and experience.

• PhD in Bioinformatics or related field.
• Experience in agriculture research and food curation.
• In-depth knowledge of food ontology classification systems and databases (BGI, NCBI, FoodOn)
• Knowledge of food composition datasets (Food Data Central, Food Ex, regionally specialized food composition tables, INFOODS).
• Experience connecting agriculture practices with food composition.
• Experience in planning and coordinating scientific seminars and workshops.
• Experience working with professionals across geographies, in an international context. Experience preparing and supporting scientific papers for peer review publications and other forms of dissemination materials.
• Professional working proficiency in English.

Terms of employment

This is an internationally recruited position based in Palmira, Colombia. The initial contract will be for one (1) year subject to a probation period of six months and is renewable depending on performance and availability of resources.

This position is graded at BG08 level, in a scale of BG01 to BG14 (BG14 being the highest level according to the Alliance job classification framework policy). We offer a competitive salary and excellent benefits including but not limited to insurance, retirement plan, staff training and development, paid time off and flexible working arrangements.

The Alliance Bioversity-CIAT is committed to fair, safe, and inclusive workplaces. We believe that diversity powers our innovation, contributes to our excellence, and is critical for our mission. Recruiting and mentoring staff to create an inclusive organization that reflects our global character is a priority. We encourage applicants from all cultures, races, colors, religions, sexes, national or regional origins, ages, disability statuses, sexual orientations, marital status, and gender identities. Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.