Early Career Wheat Breeder (PDF/Associate Scientist) at International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)

Specific duties:

• With the senior CIMMYT wheat breeder in Kenya, execute CIMMYT’s wheat breeding pipeline in eastern Africa, ensuring efficient development, advancement, and dissemination of wheat germplasm and products.
• Foster collaboration with KALRO, EIAR, and other partners across areas of germplasm development, molecular breeding, rust phenotyping, and seed systems to co-implement impactful regional wheat improvement network(s).
• Contribute to experimental design, trial, and nursery data interpretation and analyses.
• Contribute to increasing genetic gains in CIMMYT's and the eastern Africa wheat improvement network’s breeding pipelines, including the formulation, testing, and identification of impactful wheat varieties.
• Contribute to capacity-building efforts of CIMMYT, CGIAR, and the wheat improvement network(s).
• Manage the program’s regional data, implementing the Enterprise Breeding System (EBS) for streamlined data management.
• Facilitate with the senior CIMMYT wheat breeder the convening of Eastern Africa wheat product advancement meetings, with active engagement of internal and external stakeholders.
• Collaborate with regional wheat improvement teams to optimize trial locations and align them with product pipeline testing requirements for wheat.
• Lead a team of research technicians, fostering a culture of ownership and accountability.
• Assist the KALRO-Njoro and AMBA-Njoro technical station staff in implementing best practices.
• Enhance the visibility of CIMMYT's wheat research, partnerships, and impacts through the publication of high-quality journal articles.
• Perform additional duties assigned by the supervisor and Program Director to support program objectives.

Requirements

• PhD in plant breeding or a closely related field with demonstrated expertise in plant breeding
• Expertise in one, with familiarity in the other areas of biometrics and statistics, quantitative genetics, and applied molecular breeding.
• Excellent written and spoken English; competence in a second pertinent language, e.g. Swahili, Amharic, or French, is desirable.
• Desire and ability to work respectfully and inclusively in a diverse, multicultural, multidisciplinary work environment.
• The selected candidate must exhibit the following competencies: Problem-Solving, Decision making, Achievement Orientation, Communication, and Teamwork.