Comments (0)

By Amro, February 22, 2023

Postdoctoral position in genomics at York University, Toronto, Canada

The honey bee lab (www.yorku.ca/zayedlab) at York University’s Dept. of Biology (Toronto, Canada) has a position available for a postdoctoral fellow with demonstrable expertise in genomics and bioinformatics.

Our group is leading a national Genome Canada-funded initiative called BeeCSI (https://beecsi.ca/) to develop stressor-specific biomarkers for honey bees. We are looking for a postdoctoral fellow with experience in transcriptomics and interest in honey bee biology to lead the analysis of a large RNAseq dataset consisting of 43 laboratory and 12 field experiments where honey bees were naturally and experientially exposed to a large number of relevant stressors, alone and in combination. The RNAseq datasets have been fully assembled and the successful candidate will be able to initiate the bioinformatics analyses immediately after starting the position. The goal of our research is to characterize the molecular machinery underlying the honey bee’s response to multiple stressors, and to discover diagnostic transcriptional signatures that can be used to predict exposure to stressors in the field.

Qualified candidates are encouraged to submit a cover letter outlining their expertise, a CV, reprints of relevant papers, and contact information for 3 referees to honeybee@yorku.ca. We will evaluate the applications as they are received.

In addition to the honey bee lab, York University is home to the Center for Bee Ecology, Evolution and Conservation (BEEc, https://bees.yorku.ca). Successful candidates will have a chance to interact with the diverse faculty, fellows and students at BEEc, and participate in BEEc activities and training initiatives.

Start Date: April 2023

Salary: Starting from $55,000 and Commensurate with experience.

Comments (0)

By Amro, February 22, 2023

Big congrats for Katie for defending her PhD and Aidan for defending his MSc in 2022!

Comments (0)

By Amro, December 6, 2021

So thrilled to welcome a ‘tremendous’ trio of postdoctoral fellows to the group!

Dr. Bahar Patlar completed her doctorate on the evolutionary quantitive genetics of seminal fluid in flatworms in Bielefeld University, Germany and continued her seminal fluid research on fruit flies in Winnipeg. Can you guess what she will do here?

Dr. Syed Abbas Bukhari completed his PhD in informatics from the University of Illinois working on the genomics of social interactions in sticklebacks. He will be using genomics to study how multiple stressors ‘get under the skin’ of honey bees.

Dr. Sarah French competed her PhD in spatial ecology at the University of Toronto, studying the mechanisms that structure dragonfly communities. She will be studying how landscape and land use influence exposure to multiple stressors in honey bees.

Welcome Bahar, Abbas and Sarah! Can’t wait to see your diverse experiences and perspectives enrich the bee research realm!

Comments (0)

By Amro, December 6, 2021

Very happy to share this new paper from the lab on the evolutionary origin and adaptive radiation of the honey bee Apis mellifera.

Katie Dogantzis (PhD student in the lab) led this research with the help of several other current and former Zayed lab members, including Tanushree Tiwari (PhD student) and Ida Conflitti and Alivia Dey (Current and former Research Associates, respectively). The study also included collaboration with a large team of researchers from the US, Europe, Africa and Asia.

You can read the open access paper here. [Press release, NewScientist Story]

Congrats Katie!

Comments (0)

By Amro, November 22, 2021

Big congrats to MSc Student KC Galang for winning the Entomological Society of Canada’s President Prize for best student talk in the area of Social Insects, for her talk titled “The molecular basis of altruistic and selfish aggression in honey bees”

Congrats KC!

Comments (0)

By Amro, July 9, 2021

Check out this new open access article from the lab on the conservation genomics of the yellow banded bumblebee. It is a fun collaboration with Dr. Sheila Colla at YorkU, and was led by Dr. Nadia Tsvetkov (a recent graduate from the lab).  It is really tricky to understand why bumblebees are declining; we have some general ideas, but to be able to go to the field and diagnose why a specific population is not doing well is not trivial at all. In this paper, we tried to use emerging genomic tools for bumblebees to play ‘detective’. We asked if looking at patterns of gene expression in the actual bees can give us clues as to the type of stressors they experience in the field.  Check out the article here, and the press release from YorkU here!

Comments (0)

By Amro, February 24, 2021

The honey bee lab (www.yorku.ca/zayedlab) at York University’s Dept. of Biology (Toronto, Canada) has several positions available starting Summer of 2021. Projects include:

1) Developing bio-markers for honey bee health: Our group is leading a national initiative called BeeCSI (https://beecsi.ca/) which will systematically expose honey bees to a large number of relevant stressors to identify transcriptional biomarkers associated with exposure. We are looking for a postdoctoral fellow with experience in transcriptomics and interest in honey bee biology to participate in both wet-lab and bioinformatics components of this research.

2) Molecular palynology: To better understand the role of nutrition in bee health, our group is looking for a postdoctoral fellow with experience in DNA barcoding and meta-barcoding to identify the source and diversity of pollen collected by honey bee colonies situated near and far from a large number of crops in Canada. The postdoctoral fellow will work closely with collaborator and molecular palynology expert, Dr. Rodney Richardson (University of Maryland), in addition to collaborating with other researchers on the BeeCSI team (https://beecsi.ca/).

3) Landscape and bee health: We are assembling a rich dataset of pests, pathogens, pesticides, pollen diversity and transcriptomic profiles in a very large number of honey bee colonies from across Canada. We are looking for a postdoctoral fellow with experience in spatial ecology to study how landscape interacts with multiple stressors to influence honey bee health in the field.

Qualified candidates are encouraged to submit a cover letter outlining their expertise, a CV, reprints of relevant papers, and contact information for 3 referees to honeybee@yorku.ca between now and April 20^th 2021. We will evaluate the applications as they are received.

In addition to the honey bee lab, York University is home to the Center for Bee Ecology, Evolution and Conservation (BEEc, https://bees.yorku.ca). Successful candidates will have a chance to interact with the diverse faculty, fellows and students at BEEc, and participate in BEEc activities and training initiatives.

Duration: 2 years

Salary: $50,000 including benefits.

Comments (0)

By Amro, February 24, 2021

A bit belated, but big congrats to Dr. Nadia Tsvetkov on successful defending her PhD last December! Nadia’s thesis was awarded with distinction and nominated for a thesis dissertation prize. She boldly explored the effects of field realistic exposure to pesticides on Honey bee health using a variety of tools and perspectives. She also carried out a really cool conservation genomic study of the declining bumblebee Bombus terricola. Her Science paper is ranked among the top 1% of papers based on how often it has been cited, and she has won a bunch of awards including the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturist’s Student Merit Award and Entomological Society of Canada’s President Award. Nadia has taken up a postdoctoral position at the University of British Columbia. Below are a few pictures of Nadia – the field Czar – in action!

Congrats Dr. Tsvetkov! We will miss the energy and passion that your brought to the lab.

Nadia; Only dedicated students inspect colonies in the rain with no gloves!!!

Comments (0)

By Amro, July 23, 2020

Big congrats to current Zayed lab postdoc, Dr. Rodney Richardson, for landing an assistant professor position at the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science!

Rodney will be transition to his new life as a Prof in October 2020. Well done Rodney!

Comments (0)

By Amro, December 10, 2019

Multiple graduate positions in honey bee health genomics at York University, Toronto, Canada.

The Zayed lab (http://www.yorku.ca/zayedlab/) in the Department of Biology at York University (Toronto, Canada) is looking for enthusiastic graduate students (PhD or MSc), starting September 2020, to carry out research on a Genome Canada funded project called BeeCSI (beecsi.ca). Our team will develop biomarkers for a large number of stressors, and combinations of stressors, that affect the health of honey bees. This effort will ultimately involve analysis of approximately 3,000 honey bee transcriptomes, proteomes and gut microbiomes in collaboration with a large network of researchers from across Canada including colleagues at UBC, AAFC, University of Manitoba, University of Guelph, and Laval University.

Successful candidates will receive training in genomics, bioinformatics and sociobiology in a very collaborative environment. Additionally, candidates will benefit from interacting with many researchers at YorkU’s Bee Ecology, Evolution and Conservation consortium (BEEc, https://bees.yorku.ca). Together, BEEc includes 10 full time faculty (4 bee biologists, 1 mathematician, 1 engineer, and 4 social scientists), 39 graduate students, 11 post-doctoral fellows, and 4 research assistants and associates.

Toronto is a great city to live and work in; BEEtheNORTH! If you are interested, please send your c.v., contacts for 3 references, and a cover letter to zayed@yorku.ca

Information about applying to graduate school at York University can be found here
https://biology.gradstudies.yorku.ca/apply/

Best,

Amro Zayed