Automation Specialist

The NSF ExFAB BioFoundry (“ExFAB”) is user facility dedicated to developing and applyingnovel automated workflows to learn, prototype, and translate biology from unusual microbes into new biotechnologies. ExFAB’s focus is on the microbes that do not conform to standard growth habits and culture conditions or defy our current understanding of biology yet possess traits (e.g. pathways, proteins and structures) that biotechnology should harness. The ExFAB facilities span three campuses: UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside and Cal Poly Pomona. The UCSB facility features a first of-its-kind anaerobic chamber. The ExFAB Automation Specialist is responsible for collaborating with ExFAB facility users (including both internal and external academics, as well as industry and national laboratories) in developing and performing research experiments that leverage ExFAB’s automated systems – from bioprospecting new functions to realizing microbial synthetic biology. In particular, the Automation Specialist will interface with users and lead all aspects of programming, testing, and optimizing ExFAB’s integrated automation platforms, many of which are contained in an anaerobic enclosure. It is expected that substantive scientific scholarly papers and conference presentations regularly result from these collaborations, as well as novel workflows for manipulating microbes and microbial communities. This will further result in published protocols and workflows that can be utilized by the broader microbiology research community. The ExFAB Automation Specialist is expected to represent ExFAB at relevant academic conferences and to identify and seek supplemental extramural funding, as appropriate. This role involves managing platforms and instrumentation for growth, phenotyping, nucleic assay preparation, and microbial transformation. A reasonable estimate that the University expects to pay this position at 100% time is $84,000-$150,000. Review the full job description for Job #JPF03174 and submit an application on the official UCSB Academic Jobs Portal at: https://recruit.ap.ucsb.edu/JPF03174 The University of California is an Equal Opportunity Employer.