CareerPlanSign in

Postdoctoral Scholar

Penn State University Park💼 Full-time🗓 2026-09-09 → 2026-09-26

Core

Lead research on preventing cereulide contamination in infant formula and fermentation-derived food ingredients, focusing on detection of Bacillus cereus, understanding toxin formation, and developing risk assessment models.

Role type

Postdoctoral Scholar (Food Safety & Microbiology)

Builds

Detection methods, risk assessment models, scientific publications, and decision-support tools for industry/regulators

Domain

Food Science / Food Safety / Microbiology / Industrial Fermentation

Deliverable

production ML models | product features | dashboards & analysis | research | client delivery

Required skills

experimental design, microbiological analysis, culture-based and molecular detection methods, whole genome sequencing, statistical analysis, scientific writing, project coordination, mentoring

Preferred skills

experience with Bacillus cereus, molecular methods (PCR, qPCR, sequencing), microbial risk assessment, predictive microbiology, R/Python proficiency, food manufacturing/fermentation experience, analytical chemistry for toxin detection

Technologies

R, Python, whole genome sequencing platforms, PCR/qPCR systems

Responsibilities

Lead independent research on cereulide contamination; perform microbiological analyses and develop detection methods; conduct challenge and storage studies; analyze large datasets and build QMRA models; coordinate multi-institutional projects; mentor trainees; author publications and present findings

Seniority

Postdoctoral (early-career independent researcher)

Sourced via workday · Listed on CareerPlan, which tracks 70,000+ jobs from 20+ sources.