PhD Position in Environmental Biotechnology

January 31, 2023

Job Type Graduate
Job Rank PhD Student
Job Institution University of South Alabama
Job Description:
The Chemical and Bio-molecular Engineering Program at the University of South Alabama, Mobile Al, is looking for two highly motivated Doctoral candidates starting in August 2023.

The first position involves modeling the performance and microbial communities of Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactors (AnMBR) treating domestic wastewater.

The second position involves developing protein-based adsorbents for contaminant removal.

The project is headed by Dr. Kaushik Venkiteshwaran, Assistant Professor in Civil, Coastal and Environment Engineering at South Alabama, and will serve as the academic and research advisor for the candidates.

Successful candidates will join the Chemical and Bio-molecular Engineering Program at South Alabama, and will receive a doctoral degree in Chemical and Bio-molecular Engineering upon completion.

Research duties include:
Project-1
1) Building and operating lab-scale AnMBRs
2) Perform typical water/wastewater analyses
3) Perform microbial community analysis and bioinformatics
4) Perform computational modeling

Project-2
1) Isolate target DNA, design primers, perform gene cloning and cultivate bacterial cultures
2) Performing adsorption experiments

Required qualifications:
1) Bachelors in Civil or Chemical Engineering or related fields from a verifiable Institution
2) Masters in Civil or Chemical Engineering or related fields from a verifiable Institution

3) GRE: >151 in Verbal and Quantitative

4) For international students, an official TOEFL, IELTS, iTEP, or Pearson (PTE Academic) score is required.  The minimum required test scores are: TOEFL – 525 on the paper version, 197 on the computer version, or 71 on the internet version; IELTS – 6.0; iTEP – 3.7; Pearson’s (PTE Academic) – 48

Preferred qualification (Highlight any of the following in your CV or SOP)
1) Experience in operating biological reactors
2) Experience in performing typical water/wastewater analyses
3) Experience in performing microbial analyses (Plating, Genetic cloning, DNA/RNA extraction, PCRs etc.)
4) Experience in using statistical softwares (such as R, Matlab, Python etc.)
5) Writing experience – Share journal publications or conference proceedings if any.

Interested candidates should contact Dr. Venkiteshwaran (kvenkiteshwaran@southalabama.edu) via email with your Statement of Purpose (SOP), CV and transcripts  before February 28th 2023. You can also direct any questions to Dr. Venkiteshwaran