Postdoc in Aerosol Microbiome Research in Zürich

We seek to fill a postdoc position to study the diversity, structure and dynamics of aerosolized microbial communities across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The position will be based at ETH Zürich, Switzerland, and foresees exchanges with partners at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, as part of a joint project.

Airborne microbes impact key climatological processes such as cloud formation and precipitation. However, the communities they form remain one of the least studied microbial systems on Earth, especially in remote areas such as the open oceans. Studying processes at the ocean-atmosphere interface is thus of particular importance, given that they underpin the distribution of marine microbes, which may affect ecosystem structure and health even thousands of kilometres away from their source. To advance our understanding, it is thus essential to establish an inventory of airborne marine microbial diversity and to study the factors that shape their diversity and drive their emission and dispersal across large geographic distances.

By joining expertise in ocean microbial community genomics and ocean-atmosphere physics, this project will characterize the airborne microbial diversity over 110,000 km across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and explore their links to physical and biological properties in different regions in the ocean. The objectives are:

1. to explore the structure, function and ecological drivers of airborne microbial communities at an inter-oceanic scale,
2. to quantify the aerosolization efficiency of local marine bacteria to better understand how ocean microbial processes modulate emissions into the atmosphere, and
3. to elucidate long-range microbial exchange and dispersal between ocean, land and atmosphere, and thereby help disentangle the origin of airborne microbes. We will integrate our results to
4. model emission, dispersal, diversity and long-range transport explaining empirical observations. Beyond gaining new insights, the project aims to establish genomic resources for airborne marine microbial taxa and genomes to promote open-access use and discoveries by the scientific community.

• You will generate metagenomic datasets based on samples that were collected in the context of the Tara Pacific expedition and explore the diversity, function and ecological drivers of airborne microbial communities across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to elucidate the exchange and dispersal between ocean basins and the atmosphere.
• You join the  and collaborate with researchers at the . 

Required qualifications:

• PhD (or equivalent) degree in ocean microbial ecology, population genetics, environmental genomics or related fields
• Demonstrated experience in the analysis and interpretation of microbial community genomic data

The following additional qualifications will be advantageous:

• Background in bioaerosol research or related fields
• Experience in DNA extraction and the generation of NGS sequencing libraries

You will work within a vibrant, highly-collaborative research environment, which provides ample opportunities for academic training, exchange of expertise and networking.