Postdoctoral Fellow – Aquaculture Nutrition at icipe - African Insect Science for Food and Health

This position will deliver innovative research that addresses a wide range of unique and critical issues associated with fish nutrition, fish welfare, diversification of ingredient choices, safe processing into suitable ingredients for fish feed, and environmental health in the context of ONE HEALTH. Within the scope of the above and overall objectives of the INSEFF program, icipe is seeking applications from highly motivated candidates for the position of Postdoctoral Fellow– Aquaculture nutrition. The ideal candidate will support research programmes in the Insects for Food, Feed and Other Uses Programme in icipe’s Environmental Health Theme.The candidate will work in an interdisciplinary team of experts from different backgrounds, including fish nutrition, gender, climate change, validating and scaling of innovations, science communication, sustainable rural development, and bioprocesses.

The overall purpose of the job is to:

• Spearhead the research on scoping for locally available fish ingredients in the country, undertake nutrient characterization of the ingredients, and their use to suit the current production requirements under smallholder farming and commercial fish production systems.
• Conduct experiments on the nutrient requirements of local and improved strains of tilapia and African catfish available in Kenya.
• Manage on-farm and on-station experiments that compare the performance of different novel lowcost and nutritious feeds in fish production in different counties.
• Manage farmer-participatory aqua-based feeding trials that aim to tackle bottlenecks facing fish farmers through participatory technology development and transfer.
• Establish the ecological significance of low-cost feeds and assess their potential as high value products to contribute significantly to essential nutrient requirements of local improved strains of tilapia and African catfish.
• Build partnerships with NGOs, private sector, and extension service providers to incorporate project's knowledge and innovations to test and use novel feeds for aquaculture.
• Establish a cross-thematic research programme on effective harnessing of insect-based aqua-feed technological services for improved fish farming, with focus on a broad range of feed recipe formulations and their applications.

Specific Duties

The successful candidate is expected to:

• Coordinate in-depth scoping studies related to mapping, seasonality, production, and utilisation of locally available ingredients in rural markets that can be harnessed for the formulation of sufficiently nutritious but low-cost fish feeds.
• Re-evaluate a range of nutrient requirements in local and improved fish strains in Kenya to update existing data/knowledge and enable correct diet formulations.
• Develop further processing techniques to improve the quality of the local ingredients and use them to formulate balanced diets for tilapia and catfish.
• Conduct in-depth research on the impact of newly developed feeds on fish production under different farming systems in target counties.
• Conduct novel research on the development of new products (using insect oils, defatted insect meal and chitin/chitosan from pupal exuviae) on fish immunity using feed fortification technologies and explore the possibility of using antimicrobial peptides from insects on fish disease control.
• Generate data and knowledge on market, gender, socio-psychological and cultural factors that may influence the adoption and scaling of novel fish feeds.
• Provide cutting-edge scientific research to develop, adapt, and optimise strategies to harness the nutritional profiling and bioactive properties in fish production and consumption.
• Contribute to various INSEFF project management, linkage with partners (universities and national research organisations), and preparation of semi-annual and annual technical reports.
• Be responsible for data collection, management and analysis related to novel fish feed production and usage as well as support other research activities related to the project.
• Undertake supervision of research assistants, technicians, field assistants, interns, and MSc and PhD students.
• Publish research outputs in high-impact peer-reviewed journals in areas related to fish feed within the INSEFF program.
• Publish technical reports and better management practice guidelines dealing with fish and nutrition.
• Coordinate training of aquaculture stakeholders, communication and outreach programs through tailor-made training and extension services.
• Plan, organize, execute, and report on project progress in dialogue with senior as well as junior staff/employees and external partners

Requirements/Qualifications

• PhD in Aquaculture, Rural Development or related subjects with at least 3 years’ postgraduate work experience using locally available ingredients for fish feed formulation and production.
• At least 5 years progressive responsibility in, and demonstrated understanding of, development initiatives in fisheries and aquaculture related fields, three of which should be in senior management or an equivalent position in the public or private sectors.
• Experience in the design, development, and implementation of at least three large donor funded proposals in aquaculture related projects with a proven track record of linking and working with multidisciplinary teams.
• At least 5 publications on fish feed formulation and processing, and preparation feeding regimes for fish production in related areas in peer-reviewed journals.
• Should be at most 42 years at the time of application for this position.
• Skills in biostatistics, especially for robust analyses on experimental feeding regimes set up and database development, is essential.
• Additional skills in bioecological landscape assessments of fish feed production and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) would be an advantage.
• Must have an excellent publication track record in ISI – indexed journals or book chapters of which at least six (6) are as first author over the past 5 years.
• Additional knowledge on nutrient requirements of local improved strains of tilapia and African catfish and experience working in the Lake Victoria Basin region would be an added advantage.