Much of CropXR’s exciting and important work is carried out by our founding institutions and private partners at various locations in the Netherlands. CropXR’s activities are managed and facilitated from a central support office in the city of Utrecht.
At present the following career opportunities are open for applications. Click the job titles for full details and instructions on how to apply.
Open positions
- PhD candidate in Integrated Modelling for Plant Life-History Traits at CropXR/University of Amsterdam
This four-year PhD position is dedicated to research towards unraveling the regulatory networks controlling reproduction-associated transitions under temperature and drought stress. The candidate will use a combination of machine learning and mechanistic modelling to study flowering time and other plant life-history traits. We intend to design possible strategies towards optimal flowering and robust fruit and seed production under sub-optimal conditions. In four accompanying experimental PhD-projects, data will be obtained on the transcriptome and phenotype level.
– Location: Amsterdam (Netherlands)
– Employer: University of Amsterdam, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, Biosystems Data Analysis group.
– Contract type: Full time, 1.0 fte (38 – 40h per week), for 4 years
– Application Deadline: May 1, 2024
– Apply: https://vacatures.uva.nl/UvA/job/PhD-Candidate-in-Integrated-Modeling-for-Plant-Life-History-Traits/791713502/
- Head Data System Architect
The applicant will lead the design of CropXR’s nation-wide scalable data infrastructure that will combine cloud systems, high-performance computing, storage and distribution of complex data streams, and capacities for machine learning and mechanistic modelling. The work will also include designing a data lake and/or data warehouse optimized for agricultural data, relational databases, object storage, and other storage modalities.
– Location: Delft (Netherlands)
– Employer: Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Dept. Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS)
– Contract type: 1.0 fte (38h/wk)
– Application Deadline: April 15, 2024
Closed positions
- PhD researcher; ‘Metabolic Network Models’
The PhD student will study the modelling of plant responses to biotic and abiotic stress factors at the level of metabolic pathways and metabolic output by means of differential equations, and work to integrate dynamic mechanistic metabolic network models with gene regulatory network models.
– Location: Amsterdam (Netherlands)
– Employer: University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Science
– Contract type: 4 years, 1.0 fte (38 h/wk)
– Application deadline: March 3, 2024 (passed) - 3 PhD researchers; ‘Genotype-specific development of potato plants under combined stress factors’
Three positions studying resilience of potato plants with a range of genotypes to combined stress factors. Projects focus on above and below-ground plant development, yield components, and drone data.
– Location: Wageningen (Netherlands)
– Employer: Wageningen University & Research, Centre for Crop Systems Analysis
– Contract type: 5 years, 0.8 fte (30.4 h/wk)
– Application deadline: December 4, 2023 (passed) - Communications advisor | Communicatie-adviseur
Based in the central support office, the communications advisor is the go-to person for everything related to internal and external CropXR communications, taking on strategic as well as hands-on tasks.
– Location: Utrecht (Netherlands)
– Employer: Utrecht University, Faculty of Science
– Contract type: 0.6-0.8 fte (24-32 h/wk)
– Application deadline: November 29, 2023 (passed) - PhD researcher; ‘International regulations for just transitions in agriculture’
Studying how regulations can ensure access to genetic resources that are crucial for sustainable agriculture, while simultaneously ensuring the benefits are shared in a way that is equitable and fair.
– Location: Utrecht (Netherlands)
– Employer: Utrecht University, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development
– Contract type: 4 years, full time (38 h/wk)
– Application deadline: November 24, 2023 (passed) - PhD researcher; ‘Innovation in artificial intelligence for climate-resilient crops’
Studying factors that enable and constrain the development and adoption of data-driven plant breeding, as developed by the CropXR institute.
– Location: Utrecht (Netherlands)
– Employer: Utrecht University, Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development
– Contract type: 4 years, full time (38 h/wk)
– Application deadline: November 24, 2023 (passed) - PhD researcher; ‘Ethics of AI-enabled plant breeding for sustainability’
Addressing whether developing AI-driven breeding tools for more resilient crops might present ethical challenges or societal concerns at various levels, and if so, how it could be made responsive to those.
– Location: Wageningen (Netherlands)
– Employer: Wageningen University, Philosophy Group
– Contract type: 4 years, full time (38h/wk)
– Application deadline: November 20, 2023 (passed) - Data architect
Creating modular, community-driven, state-of-the-art data infrastructure to store, share and manage heterogeneous biological data sets from different sources, and to manage AI models for analyzing the data or performing prediction and simulation.
– Location: Delft (Netherlands)
– Employer: TU Delft; Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics & Computer Sciences
– Contract type: full time (38 h/wk)
– Application deadline: November 19, 2023 (passed) - PhD researcher; ‘Modelling of Plant Resilience to Temperature and Drought Stress’
Developing mechanistic models simulating the dynamic responses of plants to temperature and drought stress.
– Location: Utrecht (Netherlands)
– Employer: Utrecht University, Department of Biology, Computational Developmental Biology group
– Contract type: 4 years, full time (38h/wk)
– Application deadline: October 2, 2023 (passed) - PhD researcher; ‘Role of Soil Microbiome in Potato Plant Resilience’
Studying resilience of potato plants: how do soil microbiomes affect plants’ responses to environmental stress?
– Location: Utrecht (Netherlands)
– Employer: Utrecht University, Department of Biology, Plant-Microbe Interactions group
– Contract type: 4 years, full time (38 h/wk)
– Application deadline: September 15, 2023 (passed)