Head of Bioinformatics - Plant Biology Institute
Join us at EIT:
At the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT), we’re on a mission to translate scientific discovery into real world impact. We bring together visionary scientists, technologists, engineers, researchers, educators and innovators to tackle humanity’s greatest challenges in four transformative areas:
- Health, Medical Science & Generative Biology
- Food Security & Sustainable Agriculture
- Climate Change & Managing CO₂
- Artificial Intelligence & Robotics
This is ambitious work - work that demands curiosity, courage, and a relentless drive to make a difference. At EIT, you’ll join a community built on excellence, innovation, tenacity, trust, and collaboration, where bold ideas become real-world breakthroughs. Together, we push boundaries, embrace complexity, and create solutions to scale ideas from lab to society. Explore more at www.eit.org.
Welcome to the Plant Biology Institute:
The Plant Biology Institute, headed by Professor Steve Kelly, is a key part of the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT) Oxford. The institute aims to develop impactful and commercially sustainable solutions for improving global food production and planetary health through pioneering plant science research.
The Plant Biology Institute will unite world-class researchers who are focused on expanding the frontiers of plant science. Our research is focussed on enhancing our ability to feed the planet while simultaneously improving the climate and ecosystem outcomes of food production. By embedding cutting-edge plant science research within an organisation that is focused on solving global challenges at scale, we aim to accelerate the timeline from discovery to global impact.
Areas of exploration include:
- Improved plant productivity, both indoors and outside.
- Reduced reliance on inputs including water, fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides.
- Novel decarbonised plant-based production platforms for food and medicines.
- Advanced technologies that speed up discovery and deployment in plants.
Researchers will have access to state-of-the-art laboratory and plant growth facilities and have opportunities to collaborate with experts at the forefront of research on AI, automation, and generative biology across the EIT ecosystem. They will also work with global leaders in market development, commercialisation, and impact creation. The Plant Biology Institute has long-term substantial funding to support the unique scale and ambition of its vision.
Your Role:
At EIT we are seeking an accomplished leader to serve as Head of Bioinformatics for the Plant Biology Institute. This pivotal role will shape a newly established and rapidly scaling Plant Biology Institute that aspires to become a global leader in delivering scientific breakthroughs with real-world impact. aspires to become a global leader in delivering scientific breakthroughs with real-world impact.
The successful candidate will establish and lead PBI's bioinformatics function, delivering analytical capabilities and workflows to support PBI's trait and technology research groups. This role requires close collaboration with research scientists working across a broad range of products including large scale genome and transcriptome sequencing, evolutionary biology, plant and microbial genome and metabolic engineering, plant transformation, plant breeding, computer vision assisted automated phenotyping, machine learning and AI. The role will require working with other institutional stakeholders to scope, design, equip, and operate a new function within the research institute.
Your Responsibilities:
- To lead and manage the informatics and bioinformatics function, delivering robust analytical capabilities to support the interpretation of genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic, phenotypic, computer vision/imaging, and other biological datasets produced by PBI researchers.
- To develop and implement bioinformatics strategies and workflows that support the experimental programmes of PBI.
- To work closely with researchers and group leads to develop and refine computational pipelines for analysing data.
- To recruit, lead, and mentor a team of bioinformaticians and computational biologists, building capacity in biological data analysis and interpretation.
- To develop and maintain pipelines for processing high-throughput datasets.
- To ensure reproducibility, version control, and documentation for all analyses and pipelines, contributing to open science and collaborative research.
- To work at the cutting edge of bioinformatics methods and tools, developing new methodologies and applications and redefining how they can be applied to accelerate discovery.
- Manage resources - including personnel, equipment, and budgets - in coordination with the senior leadership team.
Requirements
Essential Skills, Qualifications & Experience:
- An advanced degree in informatics, computer science, data science, bioinformatics, or a related field, with strong experience working in a research or scientific environment.
- Experience in building and leading informatics functions, including managing teams, developing data infrastructure, and delivering end-to-end informatics solutions.
- Proven track record of designing and implementing data systems that support large-scale scientific data capture, analysis, and integration.
- Demonstrated ability to collaborate with multidisciplinary teams, including scientists, software engineers, and operational stakeholders, to deliver fit-for-purpose data tools.
- Strong technical expertise in: Data architecture and engineering (e.g. SQL, NoSQL, ETL pipelines), programming languages such as Python, Linux, API development and system interoperability, data governance and compliance (e.g. GDPR, security standards).
- Experience working within a laboratory or scientific research setting, with a strong understanding of the data needs and challenges across experimental workflows.
- Track record of effectively leading and developing people and teams, with a commitment to innovation, scalability, and reliability.
- Strong communication and stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to translate technical solutions into strategic value for the organisation.
Benefits
Our Benefits:
- Competitive salary + travel allowance + bonus
- Enhanced holiday + options to buy additional days
- Pension
- Life Assurance
- Income Protection
- Private Medical Insurance
- Hospital Cash Plan
- Therapy Services
- Perk Box
- Electric Car Scheme
- Childcare benefit
What we offer:
- Newly constructed, state-of-the-art laboratories and growth facilities, core scientific and operational support, with substantial core funding.
- A collaborative research environment with highly skilled team working at the cutting edge of plant science to create commercially sustainable solutions that tackle humanity’s biggest challenges, including enabling sustainable agriculture and improving the climate and ecosystem outcomes of food production.