Quantitative Geneticist: Welfare Breeding Strategy Lead/Associate

Location: Remote and Partner Sites (project-dependent split)
Compensation: $60K–$120K USD, depending on experience and time commitment (ideally, full-time)
Organization Type: Nonprofit – Genetics for Animal Welfare

 

Note for prospective Associates: You will work closely with the lead and have similar responsibilities, adjusted to your experience.

About the Lead Role:

We’re seeking a quantitative geneticist with deep familiarity with corporate animal breeding programs. Help us define and deliver new strategies for breeding shrimp with better welfare and health traits without compromising on production. There is an emphasis on neurological traits like mitigating anxiety, pain, and the probable felt experience of distress. To be clear, this does not involve gene editing, only selective breeding.

You’ll work directly with shrimp breeding companies, and potentially later with chicken genetics companies, and have access to common and cutting-edge tools and large amounts of data to focus on actual results. Identify selection objectives, propose experimental designs, and ensure traits like distress resistance, reduced chronic pain, and resilience are addressed.

Responsibilities:

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• Lead welfare-oriented breeding strategy conversations with industry partners

• Define selection indexes and estimate genetic parameters (e.g. heritability, correlations)

• Collaborate on trait measurement strategy (including behavioral and physiological proxies)

• Integrate comparative genomic insights into selection decisions

• Provide internal guidance on expected response to selection and trade-offs

• Familiarize yourself with affective genes, Mendelian and polygenic risk factors for severe distress

• Develop a strategy for screening against primary neurological disorders

• Conditional on a project, publish high-quality research articles in peer-reviewed journals and present findings at conferences and workshops

• Interview or give other feedback on prescreened prospective teammates

Qualifications:

 

• Note, these are ideal. You don’t necessarily have to have them all to be a great choice for the role.

• MSc or PhD in Quantitative Genetics, Animal Breeding, or Biostatistics

• Direct experience in commercial breeding or government breeding research programs

• Professional exposure to decapod genetics

• Track record of conducting and publishing original research in relevant quantitative genetics

• Strong communicator in English, comfortable translating technical methods to diverse stakeholders

 

​We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital, veteran, or disability status.

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Apply here.​

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