he Alliance is looking for a Plant Pathologist with experience in Pest and Disease Diagnostics and Modelling and with a keen interest in innovating on cassava-based production systems through implementing a decision support system that assist stake holders and ultimately smallholder farmers to deal with emerging epidemics. The candidate will work within the cassava Crop Protection team to develop a monitoring system that include information from the biology of the pest or pathogen, in the estimates parameters for dispersal or transmission, early enough to inform the models used to compare the effectiveness of different control strategies before it is too late to respond. The candidate will be primarily located in the Alliance Asia office in Vientiane, Laos; but he/she will be actively coordinating research activities both in SE Asia and in LAC under supervision of the program’s Crop Protection team. The cassava program expect that the results of his/her work must have applications across the tropics including SE Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Responsibilities
- Identify key target areas and partnerships for advancing cassava pathology research, especially emphasizing areas of current importance due to transboundary pest and disease outbreaks particularly in areas facing climate change challenges.
- Use advanced statistical methods to infer models that are used to compare the effectiveness of different control strategies to estimate parameters for dispersal and transmission of pest and diseases in SE Asia and LAC cropping systems.
- Enhance the understanding of what drives the emergence and expansion of pest and diseases of cassava outside its place of origin and domestication.
- Work collaborative with other members of the crop protection team in the cassava program.
- Participate fully in the Root, Tuber and Banana CRP, especially in Flagships 3
- Conduct research on the pest and disease identification and management aspects of the development of cassava clean seed systems.
- Support capacity building and cross-learning among key partners.
- Link with public, private and NGO partners to develop scaling strategies for cassava’s pest and disease management
- Participate in project proposals and fund-raise in support of strategic interests of cassava crop and pest and disease management.
- Represent the Alliance, and specifically the Cassava Program at meetings of all levels, providing updated information or presentations on project work.