PhD Thesis “Prediction and Functional Validation of Microbiome Modulators for Improved Soil-Plant Resilience” CENTER FOR HEALTH & BIORESOURCES
Your responsibilities
You contribute to the ARA-BIO research acceleration platform by developing a first functional verifier for soil-plant microbiome modulators, as part of a research approach for environmental and agricultural applications.
You curate and structure microbiome, plant phenotype and environmental metadata for selected soil-plant use cases. You select candidate microbiome modulators based on existing strains, DMCs and available data.
You conduct controlled tests to assess the effects on plant performance, microbiome composition and functional read-outs. You apply statistical and machine-learning approaches to link microbiome patterns, metadata and phenotypic outcomes.
You define experimental pass/fail criteria, assay limitations and failure modes for a first ARA-BIO functional verifier.
You collaborate with interdisciplinary teams working on data-driven microbiome solutions, improved crop production and research acceleration platforms, while benefiting from AIT’s expertise in microbiome profiling, plant-microbe interactions, phenotyping and microbial product development.
You prepare scientific high-quality publications and contribute to project reports, presentations and stakeholder communication, with your findings also serving as a potential basis for development of follow-up projects.
Your qualifications as an Ingenious Partner: Master’s degree in microbiology, microbial ecology, plant sciences, bioinformatics, environmental biotechnology, agricultural sciences or a related field Experience in standard microbiological and molecular biological methods, plant experiments execution and phenotypic analysis, sequence-based microbiome data analysis Basic knowledge of statistics, R/Python or bioinformatics Strong interest in soil-plant microbiomes, microbial inoculants, biostimulants or microbiome engineering Interest in interdisciplinary work between microbiology, plant science and data science Ability to work independently while contributing to a collaborative research environment Very good command of English (spoken and written). German knowledge is beneficial.
- What to expect: Start date: 01.01.2027 Deadline application: 30.11.2026 EUR 2.832,10 gross per month (14 times / year), for 30 h / week Highlights of our employee benefits include a canteen and meal allowance, organic coffee, tea and fruit baskets, preventive healthcare benefits and company doctor, pension fund, additional days off for various life events, family benefits (including two weeks of paid paternity leave “Papa-Weeks” and leisure subsidies), voucher programme, sports, cultural and socialising events, travel support for conferences and individual training and career development opportunities. In addition to this, you will also join our AIT PhD Programme with around 150 students, benefiting of networking events and various workshops. At AIT, we create an inclusive and family-friendly working environment that promotes equal opportunities and actively strengthens diversity across our workforce and in leadership positions. Among other initiatives, we are committed to increasing the proportion of women in our company and therefore particularly welcome applications from female applicants. Please submit your documents including your CV, cover letter (ideally one page, including a brief introduction of yourself, an explanation how your previous studies and experience have prepared you for this PhD position, and a motivation why you are interested in this specific position), your certificates (Transcript of records) as well as a proof of identity: https://jobs.ait.ac.at/Job/273286 Fachgebiet Microbiology, Microbial Ecology, Plant Sciences, Bioinformatics, Environmental Biotechnology, Agricultural Sciences Arbeitgeber AIT Austrian Institute of Technology Arbeitsstätte Tulln (In immediate vicinity to Vienna( Stunden 30 Antrittsdatum 01.01.2027 Bewerbungsfrist 30.11.2026 Kontakt Recruiting AIT jobline(at)ait.ac.at