Research Technician - Adaptive Traits, CSIRO

CSIRO

Location:
Australia, Perth

Category:
Research and Development

Contract Type:
Employment contract

Salary:

73000.00 - 93000.00 AUD / Year

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Job Description:

The Adaptive Traits team in CSIRO's Agriculture and Food Research Unit focuses on improving the productivity and resilience of Australia’s grain crops. Major themes include improving canola field establishment, introducing chilling tolerance to chickpea and harnessing useful diversity from crop wild relatives. We use genomic, proteomic, metabolomic and phenomic tools to characterise and transfer useful traits from diverse experimental populations into breeder-ready lines for rapid deployment into commercial breeding programs. As part of the Adaptive Traits team in CSIRO, the successful candidate will contribute to a diverse range of projects seeking to improve grain crops with a focus on canola and chickpea.

Job Responsibility:

Contribute to the development and delivery of scientific research in the areas of plant population characterisation and pre-breeding while demonstrating excellence in research practices, teamwork and inclusion, originality, creativity, and innovation to advance germplasm improvement capability
Plant population characterisation and pre-breeding will include maintaining and phenotyping plant populations in glasshouse and field experiments, sample preparation for DNA, RNA, protein and metabolomic profiling, data analysis, and seed multiplication
Under limited supervision, design and perform experiments and data analyses, design new processes by adapting existing techniques to meet special circumstances or undertake modifications to methods requiring some innovation
Conduct literature reviews, investigations and inspections in the laboratory, glasshouse or field including associated analysis possibly involving statistical or data analytical software
Work across teams and projects, often on a number of parallel and competing tasks
Work with discretion to decide on the timing of operations within the work team’s agreed plan and plan ahead to meet experimental and/or project demands
Independently test possible solutions to resolve identified problems
Maintain accurate records of all experimental procedures and results obtained which underpin future research decisions, publication, and IP protection using an electronic notebook system
General laboratory/glasshouse/field maintenance including solution/media preparation, maintenance of glass house and field plants, maintenance of laboratory supplies

Requirements:

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent relevant work experience in Plant Genetics and Breeding, Plant Physiology or related field
Experience in plant phenotyping and developing experimental breeding populations
Demonstrated excellence in laboratory record keeping and data storage
Demonstrated ability to work with a range of stakeholders in a dynamic team
Focus on continuous improvement in Health and Safety in the workplace

Nice to have:

Experience with cross-pollination of crop plants
Experience with genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic and/or metabolomic data analytics
Previous experience with R language and/or computer coding
Previous experience with use of Health and Safety management and incident recording software such as DoneSafe
Proficient in Microsoft programs, Word, PowerPoint, Excel and collaboration tools, Teams and Sharepoint

What we offer:

15.4% superannuation
Flexible work arrangements
Range of leave entitlements, benefits and career development opportunities

Additional Information:

Job Posted:
July 29, 2025

Expiration:
August 14, 2025

Employment Type:

Fulltime

Work Type:

On-site work

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Research Technician - Adaptive Traits