Location: Remote with occasional travel
Compensation: $60K USD + (negotiable – commensurate with experience and time
commitment)
Commitment: Full-time ideal, but we are open to discussing other options for strong candidates
Timeline: Applications will be assessed on a rolling basis, so please apply ASAP
About the Role
We partner with large-scale commercial programs to breed shrimp with improved health and
welfare. We’re looking for a scientist who can turn health and welfare goals into practical,
measurable phenotypes in shrimp.
This includes designing challenge tests, behavioral assays (like conditioned place preference
tests), and physiological measures to assess both health and affective states like fear or pain.
When appropriate, precision aquatic farming tools (like sensors or video tracking) will be used to
collect relevant data.
You will liaise with industry and academic partners to develop these assays and measures for
application in an industry context.
Key Responsibilities
● Design and validate behavioral and physiological assays that reflect health- and
welfare-relevant traits (e.g. stress resilience, nociception, activity recovery).
● Create challenge tests or structured protocols that can be used in real-world breeding
settings.
● Evaluate the feasibility and implementation of precision aquatic farming systems –
including video, acoustic, and biometric sensors.
● Define standard operating procedures for consistent phenotyping across breeding
environments.
● Discuss breeding strategies and choices with industry partners.
● Conditional on the project, publish high-quality research articles in peer-reviewed
journals and present findings at conferences and workshops.
● Track and integrate research on affective biomarkers in shrimp.
● Occasionally assist with the screening of prospective teammates.
Qualifications
Note, these are ideal. Even if you do not meet all the criteria, we encourage you to apply if you
believe you could excel in this role.
● MSc or PhD in animal welfare science, ethology, aquatic physiology, a related discipline,
or equivalent experience.
● Experience developing and validating behavioral assays, ideally for aquatic species.
● Ability to design and validate behavioral or physiological assays in shrimp as part of an
effective breeding protocol.
Preferred
● Track record of conducting and publishing original and relevant research.
● Experience successfully collaborating with commercial breeding companies.
● Familiarity with the neurobiology of nociception and stress, affective behavior, social
behavior, and welfare monitoring in shrimp.
● Knowledge of key threats to health and welfare (e.g.white spot syndrome virus, water
quality).
● Exposure to or experience with precision aquatic farming tools (video, acoustic,
biometric, and environmental sensors) and automated scoring/ML pipelines.
