A fully-funded 2-year post-doctoral position in molecular evolution is available in David McCandlish’s group in the Simons Center for Quantitative Biology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
The aim of this project is to study the role of mutational biases in molecular adaptation. The successful candidate will leverage emerging data on the mutations responsible for adaptive evolution at the amino acid level to determine when and how mutational biases influence the genetic basis of molecular adaptation. While the main focus is empirical, there will also be opportunities to develop new population-genetic theory. In addition, the candidate will have the opportunity to work closely with Dr. Arlin Stoltzfus at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, who will be a collaborator on this project.
The successful candidate will conduct bioinformatic and statistical analyses, and undertake a wide-scale survey of documented cases of molecular adaptation. The successful candidate will also have the opportunity to collaborate on other ongoing projects in the McCandlish lab, which more broadly focuses on the computational analysis of empirical genotype-phenotype maps and the consequences of complex genotype-phenotype relationships for molecular evolution.
This position is affiliated with the Simons Center for Quantitative Biology (SCQB).