The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) seeks to recruit a Research Officer III – Animal Genetics and Breeding to play significant role in designing and implementing performance comparisons of chicken strains, identifying productive, and widely adapted strains for use at scale by smallholder farmers in ILRI’s Tropical Poultry Genetic Solutions (TPGS)  research activities stretched across several African (e.g., Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Nigeria) and South-eastern Asian (e.g., Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar) countries with support from the national teams and the core research team ILRI

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) works to improve food and nutritional security and reduce poverty in developing countries through research for efficient, safe and sustainable use of livestock. It is the only one of 15 CGIAR research centers dedicated entirely to animal agriculture research for the developing world. Co-hosted by Kenya and Ethiopia, it has regional or country offices and projects in East, South and Southeast Asia as well as Central, East, Southern and West Africa.

Key responsibilities:

• Apply statistical models mostly independently to disentangle environmental (bioclimatic, management levels) and genetic effects influencing on-farm chicken performance (e.g., growth, egg productivity, and survival) of breeds (strains);

• Apply geospatial statistics to identify the most relevant environmental predictors influencing habitat suitability and re-define species-specific agroecologies in different countries with a focus on chickens;

• Develop workflows and analytical frameworks to compare breeds on performance and yield stability of breeds across heterogenous environments;

• Support TPGS team and its multiple research activities in data analysis and visualization;

• Conduct reviews of existing methods and concepts for multi-environment performance testing of tropically adapted livestock breeds to inform policies and development interventions leading to positive outcomes in food security, sustainability, and climate change resilience;

• Develop new research questions in adaptation genetics in the context of tropical smallholder livestock farming;

• Develop scientific manuscripts and publish in high impact scientific journals;

• Develops animal performance evaluation systems /work plans / guidelines; leads and coordinates research activities along with National partners in the TPGS project countries in Africa and Southeastern Asia;

• Contributes to development of concept notes, grant proposals and resource mobilization;

• Design and conduct on-farm experiments, undertakes high level capacity building on research, data collection, and implementation for country teams;

• Manages the development and implementation of group trainings in on-station and on-farm poultry research design and data collection for country TPGS teams;

• Communicates on-farm and on-station research protocols and findings to target audience at regional and country level meetings;

• Contributes to the writing and editing of TPGS Standard Operating Procedures;

• Compiles, summarizes, documents, and publishes research data into reports, briefs, journal articles, periodicals, discussion papers, magazines and newsletters;

• Contributes to overall TPGS and ILRI efforts in strengthening livestock genetics researches;

• Conducts regular field visits to supervise data collection and follows-up with partners in national institutions in project countries;

• Organizes and facilitates project and stakeholder engagement workshops and interacts with internal and external stakeholders;

• Provides technical support in breeding and genetics data analysis;

• Builds the capacity of partners in country teams

• Compiles regular reports on the state of the project spanning from data summaries, workshop and trip reports, project briefs etc.

• Perform other duties that may be assigned by the supervisor

Job Requirements

Education:         

• MSc degree in Animal Genetics and Breeding or in related field

• Broad / specialized knowledge of methods, techniques and processes

Experience:

• At least 7 years of practical animal breeding and genetics experience related to multi-environment performance (productive and adaptive) evaluation of breeds and ability with combining multiple sources of information (e.g., genetic, bioclimatic and phenotypic information).

• Experience in implementing poultry research and/or development activities in Sub-Saharan African/Southeastern Asian countries.

Skills:

• Analysis of animal performance, genetic, and environmental data with expertise in geospatial (ecological) modelling;

• Knowledge and demonstrated experience in livestock adaptation genetics and breeding

• Advanced R and/or Python programming skills, including multivariate analysis and (preferably) machine learning and mixed linear models;

• Demonstrated ability to publish peer-reviewed papers;

• Extensive experience in implementing proven experimental designs for various livestock systems;

• Experience and knowledge in qualitative and quantitative research methods and analyses used in animal genetic improvement programs;

• Knowledge of the poultry sector and experience in African and Asian countries;

• Experience in facilitation skills;

• Strong English language skills, both written and spoken;

• Excellent organizational, communication, and problem-solving skills;

• Punctuality, intellectual curiosity, willingness to take initiative, multi-tasking, and willingness to work under pressure to meet deadlines;

• Ability to both take direction and work independently;

• Collaborative skills and experience in working with multi-cultural teams; and

• Willingness to travel in and outside of Ethiopia

Duty Station:     Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Grade:  HG 15

Minimum Monthly Base Salary:  Birr 54,044 (negotiable depending on salary history of the candidate)

Terms of appointment:  This is a National Staff (NS) position, initial appointment is for three years with the possibility of renewal, contingent upon individual performance and the availability of funding. The ILRI remuneration package for nationally recruited staff in Ethiopia includes a very competitive salary and benefits such as life and medical insurance, offshore pension plan, etc.

How to Apply

Register using the following LINK