Data Manager, Breeding at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)

The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is a not-for-profit institution that generates agricultural innovations to meet Africa’s most pressing challenges of hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and natural resource degradation. Working with various partners across sub-Saharan Africa, we improve livelihoods, enhance food and nutrition security, increase employment, and preserve natural resource integrity. IITA is a member of CGIAR, a global agriculture research partnership for a food secure future.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Data Manager, Breeding

Ref. No: DDG-R4D/DM/B/12/20
Location: Ibadan
Recruitment Type: 3-year contract

Job Description

• IITA seeks a highly-motivated Data Manager with significant experience in working with crop improvement programs.
• This position will report to the Head of Breeding, IITA and will also regularly review progress with staff of the Excellence in Breeding platform.

Position Responsibilities

• Work with IITA plant breeders and the Excellence in Breeding (EiB) platform in the modernisation of breeding programmes for enhanced genetic gain, particularly with respect to the deployment and adoption of breeding data management systems and digitization tools.
• Help in the development and implementation of a strategic plan for adoption of software, digitization and standardized protocols for IITA, West Africa and key national partners.
• Coordinate curation for maize and other crop breeding data to enable adoption of EBS.
• Liaise with Biometrics and IT teams for specific user requirements and support.
• Coordinate the standardisation of phenotypic, genotypic, genealogy data, protocols and relevant metadata.
• Contribute to developing and reporting relevant performance metrics / KPIs for adoption of the breeding systems at IITA together with EiB.
• Continuously improve the adoption of software tools and processes, to identify gaps to adoption and work with breeding programs and Excellence in Breeding to resolve gaps.
• Contribute to improvement plans for individual crops and to institutional arrangements in support of plant breeding.
• Perform other job-related duties as may be assigned by the supervisor.

Educational Qualifications

• The candidate should have M.Sc. in Information Systems, Data Science, Plant Breeding or related quantitative area of science (PhD preferable).

Core Competencies:

• Significant experience (5 years) working as part of crop improvement teams in the public or private sector.
• Considerable experience of using and developing modern informatics tools for plant breeding.
• Considerable experience in managing data from high throughput technologies used in plant breeding (molecular and phenotyping).
• Experience of the implementation of relevant software solutions.
• Experience in Continuous Improvement projects.
• Experience with Project Management.
• Ability to influence colleagues outside of a formal management structure/in a matrixed organisation.
• Fluency in written and spoken English. Some knowledge of French would be an advantage.
• Ability to work well across disciplines and in a multicultural environment.

Remuneration
IITA offers an internationally competitive remuneration package paid in US Dollars.

Application Closing Date
14th January, 2021.