Research Assistant/Associate, Crop Experiments

Overview The School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) provides a vibrant and nurturing environment for staff and students to carry out inter-disciplinary research in key areas such as Computational Materials Science, Characterisation Materials Science, Defence Composite Materials, Functional Composite Materials, Energy, Nanomaterials, Low Dimensional Materials, Biomaterials Materials, Biological Materials, Bioinspired Materials and Sustainable Materials.

For more details, please view are looking for a Research Assistant/Associate to join an interdisciplinary project, funded by National Research Foundation Singapore (NRF) under the AI-for-Science Catalytic Grant, which aims to develop AI-driven urban farming systems for crop yield and trait optimization.

The researcher will join a multidisciplinary research team and her/his main role will be greenhouse, experiments, and project management. Greenhouse and Experiment tasks consist of facilitating experiment logistics, ensuring that all physical and manpower dependencies to execute experiments are in place. Project management tasks consist of overseeing team operation, including equipment and consumables purchases, and compliance with funding agency monitoring and information requirements. The researcher will also be responsible for liaising with industry collaborators and/or grant agency.

Responsibilities

Greenhouse and Experiment tasks

Coordinate the seedling process with industry collaborator (plant nursery before transplanting)

Coordinate manpower crew for transplanting, pot system calibration and harvesting before each experiment

Setup crop experiments, leading the setup crew in transplanting and harvesting system calibration

Administrate/execute the experiment software for the dynamic irrigation/fertigation

Monitor active experiments, including observation, incident report, progress documentation (e.g. photos), and manage the physical system according to weather conditions (e.g. shades in early stages, shutdown the system if storm is forecasted)

Coordinate with the vendors of pot and remote sensing systems for potential operational issues and data issues reported from other team members

Coordinate tank refilling with our industry collaborator’s team

Provide hardware support to the experiment, including procurement/purchase of experiment devices, sensors or peripherals

Procure chemical purchases for fertiliser-based experiments, coordinate its production, delivery, and stock management

Prepare progress reports and funding agency information requests

Project Management Tasks

Manage and plan project budget, establish forecasts, and monitor expenditure against budget

Oversee claims, procurement, and asset management

Prepare/consolidate periodic reports (finance, technical) as required and update relevant stakeholders in a timely manner

Manage project documentation, knowledge/data capture and reporting

Schedule, coordinate, and setup regular meetings to report farm status and research progress. Produce meeting minutes

Coordinate response to funding agency requests, including collating team members’ inputs and producing final deliverables

Collate reimbursement inputs from team members for experiment-related expenses, and file reimbursement requests

Support the planning, organising and managing research events of the programme (including technical symposiums, seminars/webinars, talks, etc)

Coordinate visits of international PIs (e.g. making travel booking, preparing visit programme, etc.)

Ensure compliance with information confidentiality, and safety in all aspects of the research work

Job Requirements

Bachelor’s/Master’s in Engineering or relevant fields from a reputable institution.

Diploma holders with at least 3 years of relevant experience will be considered.

Minimal 2 years’ working experience in agritechnology fields preferred

Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, and ability to work in a diverse, international, and inter-disciplinary research environment.

Willingness to work with hands-on agri-tech equipment for crop phenotyping experiments (equipment installation, setup, monitoring, and procurement)

Experience in schedule and resource planning of complex multi-party projects

Experience in one of the fields of plant phenotyping, IoT, electronic or electrical engineering -as well as hands-on experience of project management methodologies - is an advantage.

Experience in any remote sensing and phenotyping hardware and/or data analysis is an advantage.

Ability to work well with multiple competing priorities, manage projects and meet deadlines.

A good team player and able to work independently with minimum supervision.