Join Our Team
The Plant Resilience Institute (PRI) at Michigan State University (MSU) is growing and seeks talented individuals across research, administration, and more! Visit the active postings linked below to apply, and check back often for new opportunities. All PRI openings can be found at careers.msu.edu.
New and prospective PRI members should review the PRI onboarding packet. This PDF file contains helpful information for new trainees about PRI's research and labs, events, resources, and more.
Open Positions
Assistant/Associate/Full Professor Tenure System
PRI invites applications for multiple tenure-stream faculty positions at the Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor level. We seek creative, collaborative researchers using innovative laboratory, computational, and/or field-based approaches to investigate plant responses to environmental challenges. Applications are encouraged from individuals studying any aspect of plant resilience across any scales, using model, non-model, or crop species. Research areas of interest include but are not limited to abiotic and biotic stress responses; plant-environment interactions; genotype-by-environment dynamics; and systems, synthetic biology, and other functional or AI approaches that advance our understanding of plant adaptation and productivity under changing environments. Consideration will be given to applicants whose research complements and expands PRI’s strengths in hormones and small metabolites, plant-microbe and plant-insect interactions, and molecular mechanisms of stress tolerance and adaptation.
Research Associate-Fixed Term
Howe lab: PRI is seeking a highly motivated and skilled postdoctoral researcher to lead a project focused on discovering a new class of regulatory metabolites and their nuclear signaling mechanisms that govern plant resilience. The project integrates bioinformatics, molecular genetics, protein structural prediction, and experimental validation to investigate their roles in gene regulation and stress response. The postdoctoral researcher will lead efforts in gene characterization, reverse genetics and ligand screening using phenotyping and molecular genetic approaches. This is a unique opportunity to contribute to conceptual advances in plant stress hormone biology, while building tools and resources of broad utility to the plant science community. The successful candidate will join a highly interdisciplinary team led by Dr. Gregg Howe, with collaborators across PRI.
Rhee lab: The Rhee lab at PRI seeks to recruit a postdoctoral researcher to investigate how nematodes respond to chemical and environmental cues, with the goal of advancing plant resilience through improved understanding of plant-nematode interactions and stress tolerance mechanisms. This position supports two of PRI's research initiatives. In collaboration with researchers from the Center for Sustainable Plant Innovation and Resilience through International Teamwork (C-SPIRIT), the successful candidate will investigate the effects of plant-derived compounds on nematode physiology, behavior, and survival, with the goal of discovering natural products that protect crops from parasitic nematodes such as root-knot nematodes. A second focus will be on understanding the molecular mechanisms of desiccation tolerance in the model nematode C. elegans, particularly in the dauer stage, in partnership with the Water and Life Interface Institute (WALII).
Equal Opportunity Statement
In compliance with the law, Michigan State University is an equal opportunity employer. University programs, activities, services and facilities are provided without regard for a persons age, color, gender (including gender identity and gender expression), genetic information, disability status, ethnicity, height, marital status, national origin, political persuasion, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation), military or veteran status, or weight, or any other status protected by applicable federal or state law. In carrying out this commitment, the university is guided by the applicable federal and state laws and regulations and policies adopted by the Board of Trustees.
The Office for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion oversees MSU’s affirmative action and equal employment opportunity compliance with respect to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
For information about applicable laws and university policy, please see the Michigan State University Notice of Non-Discrimination, Anti-Harassment and Non-Retaliation.
Why MSU?
Michigan State University is a member of the Association of American Universities and is listed among the 100 most distinguished research universities in the world. With over $750 million dollars in research expenditures annually, MSU is a Top 50 research university nationally. Nearly 1,900 tenure stream faculty and 17 degree-granting colleges including Engineering, Natural Science, Agriculture, three Colleges of Medicine (Human, Osteopathic, and Veterinary), Education, Humanities, Social Science, and the MSU/Department of Energy Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, create diverse and countless opportunities for collaboration.
