ILRI vacancy: Technical Assistant – Biorepository

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) seeks to recruit a Technical Assistant to support the Biorepository unit, in its day to day operations and serving the internal and external users.

ILRI works with partners worldwide to enhance the roles that livestock play in food security and poverty alleviation, principally in Africa and Asia. The outcomes of these research partnerships help people in developing countries keep their farm animals’ alive and productive, increase and sustain their livestock and farm productivity, find profitable markets for their animal products, and reduce the risk of livestock-related diseases. http://www.ilri.org

ILRI is a not-for-profit institution with a staff of about 700 and in 2015, an operating budget of about USD83 million. A member of the CGIAR Consortium working for a food-secure future, ILRI has its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, a principal campus in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and offices in other countries in East, West and Southern Africa and in South, Southeast and East Asia. www.cgiar.org

 The Position

Azizi Biorepository is a research service unit under the Animal Biosciences tasked with long term storage of biological materials. The unit aims at developing a collaborative network of partners who share biological materials and the associated metadata, by encouraging the use of common protocols and systems thereby creating a unique collection accompanied with rich data with for probing the diversity of African livestock. We want to ask the questions: What is there? What are its characteristics? How does it work? What pathogens are there? What works in what farming systems? How does rumen biology vary with location and breed?  etc. In addition we would also like to see sharing of precious material, partly for safety and partly to facilitate research. http://azizi.ilri.org/

The unit seeks to recruit a technical assistant who will assist in delivering the above mandate and whose main responsibilities will be:

Key Responsibilities

• Transfer of samples from small dewers to the large liquid nitrogen tanks.
• Performing yearly audit of the Bio repository samples.
• Printing labels for samples to be collected.
• Creation of open data kit (ODK) field forms for data collection as per the user’s specifications.
• Training of users using the developed data collection forms.
• Reconciliation of samples from the field and the associated data.
• Receiving of samples from the field and storing the samples in the appropriate places in the storage system.
• Retrieval of samples from the storage system for the bio repository users.
• Serving users with liquid nitrogen.
• Preparation of field consumables for projects going to the field.
• Liaising with the engineering department to ensure all alarms are promptly attended.
• Updating the bio repository systems in time and ensuring that the data in the system is up to date and reflects the physical status in the storage system r

Requirements

• A Diploma in sciences or Technical related field.
• At least 3 years’ experience in a relevant field.
• Good knowledge and proficiency in using the Microsoft Office Suite.
• A good track record in working in a service delivery position.
• Experience in training users.
• Experience in working in a biorepository will be an added advantage.

Terms of Appointment

This is a Nationally Recruited Staff (NRS) position based at ILRI’s Nairobi campus. It is open to Kenyan nationals only. The position is on a 3-year contract, renewable subject to satisfactory performance and availability of funding.

Job Level

This position is job level 1C level 1.  ILRI offers a competitive salary and benefits package which includes; pension, medical and other insurances for ILRI’s Nationally Recruited Staff.

How to apply: Applicants should send a cover letter and CV explaining their interest in the position, what they can bring to the job and the names and addresses (including telephone and email) of three referees who are knowledgeable about the candidate’s professional qualifications and work experience to the Director, People and Organizational Development through our recruitment portal http://ilri.simplicant.com/  before 14 July 2015. The position title and reference number TA/07/2015 should be clearly marked on the subject line of the online application.

To find out more about ILRI, visit our websites at http://www.ilri.org/

To find out more about working at ILRI visit our website at http://www.ilri.org/ilricrowd/

ILRI is an equal opportunity employer