For over 200 years the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung (SGN) has represented one of the most relevant institutions investigating nature and its diversity. Currently, scientists from more than 40 countries across 11 locations in Germany conduct research in the fields of biodiversity, earth system analysis and climate change. The head office of Senckenberg is Frankfurt am Main together with the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt.
To support the DFG-funded Specialised Information Service Biodiversity Research (BIOfid, www.biofid.de) at our location in Frankfurt am Main or optionally in Görlitz we are looking for a full time Research Associate at the earliest possible date.
We are an interdisciplinary team of natural scientists, text technologists and librarians developing new text mining tools for semantic indexing of 19th and 20th century Central European biodiversity literature (mainly in German language). Existing data on the systematics and ecology of various organisms, which have been difficult to access until now, can thus be mobilised and used by scientists for further studies. In our second project phase, we focus on ecosystem services in the sense of plant-pollinator interactions and soil invertebrates.
Your tasks:
- Extension, standardisation and structuring of existing vocabularies and thesauri on morphological and functional traits of soil fauna based on the data warehouse Edaphobase and in collaboration with an international team
- Support for the ontology development on species traits of soil fauna and its linkage to taxonomic ontologies
- Evaluation and consolidation of text mining technologies
- Analysing and publishing project-related data
- Project presentations at national and international conferences
- Participation in the organisation of workshops for user groups
- Reporting to the DFG and the scientific advisory board
- Successfully completed university studies (ideally a doctoral degree) in biology, bio(diversity)informatics or a related field
- Good knowledge of terminologies and nomenclatures in biology, especially morphology, systematics and traits of soil fauna
- Basic understanding of zoological-ecological interactions and functions
- Knowledge of basic data standards for biodiversity data
- Fluency in English both spoken and written
- Excellent abilities in team work and communication as well as self-reliant service- and target-oriented operation
- German language skills
- Software skills for the development of ontologies (e.g. Protégé)
- Experiences with database queries
- An attractive and challenging position in a research institution of international standing
- The opportunity to gain experience in the above-mentioned fields of research as well as the chance to participate in an international network with scientists in interdisciplinary fields
- Flexible working hours – mobile working – leave of absence due to family reasons – parent-child-office (certified by the audit berufundfamilie) – annual special payment – company pension scheme – Senckenberg badge for free entry in the Senckenberg museums – leave of 30 days/year – discounted job ticket (for the Rhine-Main area)
You would like to apply?
Please send your complete and meaningful application documents (letter of motivation, CV, educational and professional certificates and credentials, as well as professional references), mentioning the reference of this job announcement (ref. #01-21012) and if possible your preferred place of work (Frankfurt or Görlitz) before April 7th, 2021 by e-mail (attachment in a single pdf document) to recruiting@senckenberg.de or apply directly on our homepage using the online application form.
For more subject-specific information, please contact Dr. Christine Driller, christine.driller@senckenberg.de
