Job Description

American Castanea PBC

American Castanea is now seeking to hire a spring and summer plant science intern.

About us

For the first time in history, we are poised to return a tree back from extinction, the American chestnut. America Castane is dedicated to restoring America's great hardwood trees. We use advanced biotechnologies to accelerate solutions to hardwood tree diseases. We teamed up with scientists at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) who developed a blight-tolerant transgenic American chestnut tree. Dozens of similar fungal pathogens pose existential threats to our forests.

Our internship is designed to provide direct experience with practical R&D in a small-company entrepreneurial setting.

About the position 

We are currently filling a part-time paid plant biology internship working directly with our scientific team in support of our R&D objectives. This is an historical opportunity to work on the vanguard of genomic plant science and ecology. You will help bring back the very first tree from extinction.

The ideal candidate would be able to work 15-20 hours per week during the academic year and up to 40hr/wk during the summer.

Duties may include (based on experience)

• Evaluate the relevance of ongoing university research to our R&D objectives by interviewing scientists and using AI tools to assess research papers & data.
• Assist in the development of a bioinformatics database designed to standardize and consolidate phenotypical and genomic sequencing data.
• Assist with analysis projects designed to identify the genetic basis for core fitness traits.
• Test hypothesis and validate statistical findings via lab and field experiments.
• Intern will also contribute to administrative projects and tasks such as scheduling travel, capturing and summarizing meeting notes, etc.

Required skills and traits

• Graduate student in a plant-science related field who has completed at least one year of graduate studies with a GPA of 3.5+
• A can-do attitude and desire to work quickly in a team environment
• Available to work at least 10 and up to 20+ weeks 
• Capacity to efficiently synthesize and summarize ideas & data
• Experience in statistical genetics and rare variant analysis
• Ideally, experience in analyzing and interpreting next generation sequencing data, particularly in DNA and RNA-seq
• Experience and/or training in horticulture, forestry or agriculture a plus

Locations

Remote work, in-person work in Lincoln, MA and potential for travel to field locations and conferences. Our locations include Oxford, England, Boston, MA, St. Louis, MO, McGraw, NY.

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