Sikiru Adeniyi Atanda

PhD opportunity at North Dakota State University in the PulseSmart Innovation Lab for a student interested in plant breeding , pulse crops , quantitative genetics , genomics , bioinformatics , and data science . The project is an applied breeding program focused on improving field pea , chickpea , and lentil cultivars for North Dakota and the U.S. Northern Plains. Research may include regional adaptation, yield stability, maturity, standability, harvestability, root-disease resistance, resilience to production-limiting stresses, seed composition, quality, end-use functionality, high-throughput phenotyping, genomic selection, marker-assisted breeding, genotype-by-environment analysis, and breeding-data analytics. The student will gain hands-on experience in crossing, population development and improvement, field trials, phenotyping, genomic and quantitative analysis, predictive modeling, and translating research findings into practical breeding decisions. Applicants with backgrounds in plant breeding, genetics, crop science, plant science, agronomy, bioinformatics, statistics, computational biology, or related fields are encouraged to apply. Experience with R, Python, genomic data analysis, molecular markers, bioinformatics workflows, experimental design, or field research is considered valuable. This is a PhD opening with an anticipated start date of Spring 2027 . Interested candidates should email a cover letter, CV, and unofficial transcripts to the supervisor.