The Shrestha lab in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering (EHE) at Johns Hopkins University is seeking a postdoctoral researcher to join the team starting in Summer 2025. The postdoc will work on projects focused on advancing anaerobic fermentation technologies, specifically leveraging synthetic microbial consortia, to recover biochemicals and biomaterials from organic waste streams and lignocellulosic biomass. The research will integrate laboratory experiments with computational biology, offering opportunities to work at the intersection of bioprocess engineering, membrane separation, environmental microbiology, synthetic biology, and metabolic modeling. The postdoc will be also expected to mentor graduate and undergraduate students in the lab, contribute to collaborative research projects, and prepare reports and manuscripts for publication, among other scholarly activities, with the supervision of Dr. Shrestha. They will be encouraged to participate in grant writing, conference presentations, and professional and career development activities. More information about Dr. Shrestha’s lab can be found on the lab website and the department faculty page.
Required Qualifications:
- Ph.D in environmental engineering, chemical engineering, molecular biology, microbiology, or a related field.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Candidates with a background or previous research experience in sequencing, molecular biology, synthetic biology, microbial community analysis, anaerobic microbiology, and/or bioinformatics are encouraged to apply.
- Experience with analytical methods such as GC-FID, GC-MS, and HPLC.
- Proficiency with R, Matlab, Python, or other programming languages is a plus.
- Strong scientific writing and communication skills.
How to apply:
Interested candidates should contact Dr. Shrestha at sshres33@jh.edu with “EHE-JHU Postdoc Application” in the subject line. Include the following documents as a single pdf:
- A cover letter describing your background, relevant research experience and skills, why you are interested in this position, and your career goals.
- CV (with names and contact information of at least three references).
- Undergraduate and graduate degree transcripts.
- At least one writing sample, such as a peer-reviewed journal article.
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled. Shortlisted candidates will be contacted for a Zoom interview.