Assistant Professor (Quantitative Microbe-Plant-Environment Interactions), Department of Microbiology, Fall 2026

Job description

Description The Department of Microbiology at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville is seeking candidates for a nine-month, tenure-track faculty appointment at the Assistant Professor level applying quantitative approaches to study microbial (prokaryotic, eukaryotic, or viral) effects on plant ecosystems. Faculty in this position are expected to establish an innovative, externally funded research program and contribute to the departmental teaching and training mission at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Candidates utilizing mathematical and/or computational approaches with or without wet-bench or field work are encouraged to apply. Specific areas of interest include, but are not limited to: Modeling multi- omic data to quantify microbial metabolism, assembly, and their influence on native plant and/or agricultural systems Quantifying and predicting the sensitivity of the microbiomes of phototrophs to environmental change Developing quantitative tools for the analysis of plant microbiome systems data, including but not limited to, machine learning, metabolic modeling ( e.g. flux-balance models), and network analyses Mathematical or statistical modeling of temporal and spat...