PhD in Brachypodium perennial species

We seek candidates for a PhD FPI contract associated to our project “Evolution of biological traits and speciation processes in the model genus Brachypodium (Poaceae) through comparative and functional genomic” (CGL2016-79790-P). The PhD thesis will investigate the origins and evolutionary changes of perenniality/annuality switches and the pangenomic diversity and phylogeography of model grass species of Brachypodium.

The work (2018-2021) will be carried out at the High Polytechnic School of Huesca (University of Zaragoza, Spain) with research stays at CSIC (with Bruno Contreras-Moreira @ EEAD and Pilar Hernández @ IAS) and international institutes and participation in CSP Joint Genome Institute projects. The PhD thesis will include field and greenhouse work, genomic and transcriptomic data generation and processing, and development of computational pipelines for genomics and phylogenomic analyses of perennial and annual species of Brachypodium.

The research team has a large experience in evolutionary genomics (www.bifi.es/bioflora), computational biology (www.eead.csic.es/compbio) and translational genomics (https://goo.gl/RSnfw3) studies of grasses.

Applicants should comply with the requirements to apply for a Spanish PhD contract (open to European Community and other countries citizens, see information at https://goo.gl/5Bp6YW). Experience in plant evolutionary biology, genomics and bioinformatics will be highly valued.

Interested applicants please contact Prof. Pilar Catalan (pcatalan@unizar.es) and send Curriculum Vitae and a brief motivation letter before October 3 2017.