DO YOU WANT TO BE PART OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF RESILIENT CROPS THAT CAN CONTINUE TO FEED THE WORLD WHEN FACED WITH CLIMATE CHANGE, REDUCED PESTICIDE USE, AND REDUCED IRRIGATION? THEN YOU MIGHT BE THE IDEAL CANDIDATE TO JOIN OUR INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH INSTITUTE CROPXR!

With a budget of 96 million euros over a period of ten years, CropXR focuses on creating eXtra Resilient (XR), sustainable, and climate-adaptive crops. By combining plant biology, simulation modelling, and artificial intelligence we aim to develop smart breeding and cultivation methods. Thus, we try to speed up the breeding of complex resilience traits for several crops in different growing systems. This collaborative effort involves four universities and numerous companies. It encompasses scientific research, data collection and sharing, education, and practical applications in agriculture and plant breeding. Learn more about CropXR at here.
This vacancy is for two PhD positions that are part of the Translator work package within the core research program of CropXR. Our goal is to develop computational methods to translate integrated simulation models of plant responses to stress (drought, heat) from a model plant species (Arabidopsis thaliana) to a number of relevant annual crop species. This highly interdisciplinary and collaborative work package brings together experimentalists, providing measurement data for translation and testing model predictions; bioinformaticians, investigating evolutionary conservation of sequence, (co)expression and regulatory modules; and modelers, developing crop-specific integrated plant models.
In this work package, two PhD candidates (one at Wageningen University, one at Utrecht University) will focus on complementary modelling objectives. The candidates will partly work together. Data produced by other research teams within the work package will be available for model design and parameterization.
The PhD candidate at Wageningen University will quantify and analyse to which extent stress effects on shoot and root phenotype, as quantified for Arabidopsis, can be translated to crop species. This will allow us to analyze which crop traits and responses are relevant for crop productivity under stress. You will develop a model that simulates shoot and root development and growth. This model will simulate plant growth based on carbon availability and demand by growing organs, driven by light interception leaves, nitrogen and water uptake and transport, and temperature. This approach will result in a model that can predict plant performance for the different crop species under a range of (stress) conditions, which allows to identify traits relevant to resilience.
The PhD candidate will collaborate with the PhD candidate Utrecht University, who will translate a mechanistic Arabidopsis drought and heat-stress response model, going from the molecular network to the plant-level architecture and responses.

Please refer the Job description for details