Data manager - Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute - Utrecht

Are you passionate about managing and curating scientific data? Join the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute as a full-time Data Manager and play a key role in centralizing and organizing diverse datasets from our globally respected fungal culture collection. Your efforts will strengthen our mission to integrate morphology, physiology, and whole genome data into a holistic fungal taxonomy, and support impactful research worldwide.

What you will be doing

· Organize and centralize morphological, physiological, sequencing, and omics datasets

· Curate and maintain our open-access and internal fungal culture databases

· Work with tools like R, Python, and SQL to manage, clean, and visualize scientific data

· Ensure compliance with FAIR data principles and support open science

· Collaborate with researchers, bioinformaticians, and the culture collection team.

What you will be contributing

· BSc degree or equivalent in data management, bioinformatics, or a related field

· Experience with microbiology-related data including sequencing and omics

· Familiarity with long-read sequencing (e.g., Oxford Nanopore, PacBio)

· Proficiency in R, Python, SQL, and command-line tools

· Experience with metadata handling, archiving, and FAIR data principles

· Strong attention to detail, organizational skills, and communication skills

· Fluency in English; Dutch language skills are a plus

· Background in mycology is beneficial, but not required

What we are offering

· A full-time data management position in a leading fungal biodiversity institute

· Supervision by the Institute’s Director and collaboration with interdisciplinary teams

· A dynamic and collaborative work environment that encourages professional growth

· Opportunities to participate in internal training for soft skills development

· The chance to contribute to globally impactful biodiversity and genomic research

Please contact Prof. Wieland Meyer (Director Westerdijk Institute), at w.meyer@wi.knaw.nl. 

About the Westerdijk Institute

The Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute is a research institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences located at Utrecht Science Park. Our researchers study biodiversity across the entire spectrum of the fungal kingdom. They develop and use a wide range of techniques to map the biology, ecology, and genetic information of fungi.

With a unique collection of more than 100,000 living fungal strains, yeasts and bacteria, we are at the forefront of mycological research worldwide. We are a center of expertise for mycology and contribute to solving socially relevant issues in the areas of health, agriculture and industry.

Our relatively small, internationally diverse institute has 50 employees and a similar number of guest researchers.
Additional information is available on our website: www.wi.knaw.nl.

Terms of employment
Depending on education and experience the minimum salary is 3.218 and the maximum salary is 4.298 gross per month for a full-time appointment (scale 8 cao Nederlandse Universiteiten/KNAW). This is exclusive of 8% vacation allowance, 8.3% year-end bonus, travel allowance, internet allowance, home working allowance and pension accrual with ABP.

The KNAW offers its staff an excellent package of secondary benefits. A package that meets the different needs of employees depending on their stage of life, lifestyle or career ambitions. For example, by working an extra two hours a week, it is possible to increase the number of days off from 29 to 41 days a year (with full-time employment). 

For a complete overview of the terms of employment, please refer to the web page: werken bij de KNAW.

Applying for a Certificate of Good Conduct can be part of the employment procedure.

Diversity & Inclusion
The KNAW considers a working environment in which everyone feels welcome and appreciated of great importance. A working environment in which attention is paid to individual quality and where development opportunities are paramount. Together we strive for an inclusive culture in which we embrace differences. We would therefore like to invite candidates who want to contribute to this through their background and experience. In the event of equal suitability, preference will be given to the candidate who thus enhances diversity within the Academy.

We will not respond to any supplier enquiries based on this job advertisement.