The Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) is a unique interdisciplinary Research Centre of Excellence (RCE), funded by National Research Foundation, Ministry of Education (Singapore), Nanyang Technological University and National University of Singapore. Hosted by NTU in partnership with NUS, SCELSE is linking new insights from the life sciences with expertise from emerging technologies in engineering and natural sciences to understand, harness and control microbial biofilm communities and microbiomes.

We are recruiting a marine microbiologist for a Research Fellow position in SCELSE. The research fellow will be in charge of investigating the molecular basis of microbially influenced corrosion under high hydrostatic pressure in both natural and laboratory settings, using advanced molecular techniques and imaging tools. They will be collaborating with a large interdisciplinary team of researchers with expertise in materials science, engineering, ecology and microbiology. Furthermore, they will perform research aimed at characterising ways to monitor and prevent corrosion of metal structures deployed in the deep-sea.

Key Responsibilities:

• Plan and execute corrosion experiments
• Maintain the collaborations with the multinational team
• Perform physiological experiments using mono- and mixed-species communities
• Undertake metagenomic sample processing and analysis
• Analyse the microbiomes colonising carbon steel coupons

Job Requirements:

• PhD in molecular ecology or microbiology
• Candidates with PhD in corrosion science with documented expertise in electrochemistry and microbiology are also welcome
• Experience in microbiology is required
• Knowledge of good experimental design
• Understanding of microbial physiology and redox processes
• Competency in NGS sequencing and RNAseq
• Competency in basic microbiology techniques
• Experience with advanced imaging techniques (including FISH, confocal microscopy and spatially resolved transcriptomics)
• Knowledge of DNA extraction and quantification
• Working knowledge of statistical analysis using R
• Experience in deep-sea microbiology will be beneficial

Interested applicants should submit a curriculum vitae that includes a cover letter describing their research experience, interests, and submit it through here.

The Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) is a unique interdisciplinary Research Centre of Excellence (RCE), funded by National Research Foundation, Ministry of Education, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and National University of Singapore (NUS). Hosted by NTU in partnership with NUS, SCELSE is linking new insights from the life sciences with expertise from emerging technologies in engineering and natural sciences to understand, harness and control microbial biofilm communities and microbiomes.

SCLESE is seeking an exceptional Research Fellow to work under a National Research Foundation-funded multi-disciplinary project titled ‘Sewage-based surveillance for rapid outbreak detection and intervention in Singapore”.

Epidemiological surveillance is a mainstay of Singapore’s national security agenda as well as protecting community health, and has been effectively deployed in mitigating epidemics such as SARS, Zika, and most recently, COVID-19. While clinically-reported data remains the gold standard for disease surveillance and tracking, such data is less effective in tracking asymptomatic carriers. Moreover, clinical data suffers from biases in self-reporting. In this view, wastewater epidemiology—to track viral and bacterial disease agents in urine and faeces—serves as an important complement to clinical reporting. With governments seeking better ways to trace disease outbreaks, especially with pandemics like COVID-19, wastewater epidemiology may prove to be a standard intervention measure.

Yet, how such technologies are developed, in what kinds of political contexts, and with what kinds of implications for equity, ethics and power is far from understood, and requires rigorous social scientific analysis from the beginning.

Key Responsibilities:

• Work on the following core themes:
  • The politics of knowledge, expertise and power of sewage surveillance in Singapore, and how questions of ethics, privacy and equity are implicated, with the goal of developing a framework of “best practices”
  • Developing an intellectual history of wastewater surveillance, and tracing the contemporary development of the technology across the globe
  • Developing a culturally appropriate “visioning workshop” to elicit potential causes for concern, including privacy and desired benefits from the technology to enrich and facilitate security and public health

Job Requirements:

• PhD in science and technology studies, geography, anthropology, or related field using ethnographic methodologies
• Knowledge of wastewater surveillance and an interest in the social, political and legal implications epidemiological surveillance
• Strong methodological experience in ethnography in more top-down political contexts
• Ability to work well in a highly interdisciplinary environment
• Willingness to conduct laboratory work with other scientists

Interested candidates should submit a current CV, a cover letter detailing research interests and how they might align with the project, and a list of three referees in their application here.