The Crowder lab at Washington State University (http://entomology.wsu.edu/david-crowder/) seeks a highly motivated MS or PhD to work on a recently awarded grant examining interactions between beet leafhopper insects, potato crops, and non-crop hosts. Beet leafhopper is a major pest of potatoes in the Pacific Northwest US, mainly due to its ability to transmit a phytoplasma (bacteria-like pathogen) that causes purple top disease, which can devastate yields. Current strategies for managing this disease are to use insecticides to control the leafhopper, but these strategies are unsustainable. Importantly, leafhoppers are broad generalists that use many non-crop hosts (weedy plant species) as hosts in the spring and summer months. Leafhoppers then move into potatoes in the summer, where they can transmit the phytoplasma and cause purple top disease. However, we know relatively little about which non-crop hosts are suitable pathogen hosts. We seek a student to explore this key knowledge gap. The project will involve extensive field work in the Columbia Basin of Washington, sampling both crop and non-crop hosts for beet leafhopper and using molecular tools to identify the pathogen. The student should thus be willing to drive to/from field sites (which are often 2-3 hours away) and spend long days in the field (it is likely a successful student might work only 3-4 days a week in the summer for 10-12 hours a day to reach 40 hours a week). The project will also involve lab experiments in the winter months to assess the susceptibility of different plant hosts to the pathogen, and determine which hosts are suitable reservoirs for the pathogen.

Given terms of our grant, we have a compressed timeline to hire a talented individual. Ideally candidates would be able to start by May 1st, and candidates that cannot start by May 15th will unfortunately not be considered. Students would be hired as a technician in summer 2019, and start their formal graduate school training (coursework, etc) in the Fall 2019 semester. Candidates should mention if this is feasible in their cover letter. Additionally, it is likely that the lab PI (David Crowder) will be on sabbatical from Sep 2019 to May 2020. While he will continue to meet virtually with lab members and be engaged with all lab functions, interested candidates must be highly independent and willing to learn from the large team of graduate students and postdocs already in the laboratory. We have a diverse group currently consisting of 8 graduate students and 3 postdocs, and we are excited to build on the success of this team. The Palouse is a beautiful area of the country to !

live/work with low cost of living and numerous opportunities for outdoor activities. Both WSU and the University of Idaho are located in the Palouse, within 8 miles, and a student interested in joining this highly collaborative research community will be welcomed.

If interested, please send a cover letter/CV to dcrowder@wsu.edu to determine if the student should apply formally to WSU (this requires GRE scores, so students should have taken the GRE already to meet the potential May 15th deadline). Applications will be reviewed as they are received. Ideally students will be able to submit a formal application to WSU no later than March 31st to meet the May 1st hiring goal.