- Opportunity to be part of a project involving Microbial Risk Assessment in Leafy Green Salads
- Located at Australian Technology Park Campus, School of Life and Environmental Sciences
- 12 Months Fixed Term, Full-Time, Academic Level A: Base Salary: $73,420 p.a. – $92,682 p.a. plus a generous employer’s contribution to superannuation.
About the opportunity
Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Associate to the Australian Research Council (ARC) Industrial Transformation Training Centre (ITTC) for Food Safety in the Fresh Produce Industry.
The overarching purpose of the centre is to conduct industry-focused research to develop practical solutions to prevent or minimise microbial food safety risks in fresh produce across the value chain.
The increase in consumption of leafy green salads and raw vegetables has led to increased risk of foodborne illness associated with fresh produce. Pre-harvest food safety risks in leafy greens include contamination of leaf and root surfaces by Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes and E. coli. This project aims to understand the effect of local environmental conditions, and on-farm production practices on microbial survival during the pre-harvest stages in the supply chain. This information will be used to develop and refine a decision support tool based on QMRA, for reducing microbial risk in the Australian leafy greens market. The decision support tool will be used for informing quality assurance certification schemes and growers on managing risks in the leafy green food industry.
The successful candidate will participate in the above research program developing QMRA models for our industry partners. The successful candidate will design and conduct research trials, analyse the results and write up the results in a suitable format for publication. The candidate will also assist with supervision of PhD, Masters and Honours student.
