The Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) of Tokyo Institute of Technology was launched in December 2012 as part of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). The WPI grant is awarded to institutes with a research and administrative vision to become globally competitive centers that can attract the best scientists from around the world to come to work in Japan.

ELSI aims to answer the fundamental questions of how the Earth was formed, how life originated in the environment of early Earth, and how this life evolved into complexity. ELSI pursues these questions by studying the “origin and evolution of life” and the “origin and evolution of the Earth” through an interdisciplinary collaboration between the fields of Earth, Life, and Planetary Sciences. By understanding the early Earth context that allowed for the rise of initial life, we also work to establish a greater understanding of the likelihood of extraterrestrial life elsewhere in the universe.

Scientific fields related to research themes pursued at ELSI:

  • Formation of the Earth

  • Earth interior properties and dynamics

  • Early Earth environment and evolution

  • Solar system exploration

  • Formation and characterization of exoplanets

  • Origin of life

  • Abiotic chemical evolution

  • Messy chemistry

  • Biochemistry

  • Early biological evolution

  • Microbial ecology

  • Metagenomics and Next Generation Sequencing

  • Virology

  • Biogeochemical cycling

  • Bioinformatics

  • Complex systems science

  • High performance computing

  • Artificial life

Requirements
ELSI Research Scientists must hold a Ph.D. degree from an accredited institution in a relevant field at the time of appointment.

Number of Openings
Up to five positions are offered in the present recruitment.

Starting Date
August 1, 2018 or earliest possible date thereafter. Please discuss with us if this schedule poses potential problems, and we will try to meet your needs where possible.

Period of Employment
Three years, with a possible extension until March 31, 2022 based on the successful applicant’s performance and the direction and situation of ELSI.

Place of Work:
Earth-Life Science Institute
Tokyo Institute of Technology
2-12-1-IE-1 Ookayama, Meguro-ku
Tokyo 152-8550, Japan

For more information, visit:
http://www.elsi.jp/en/about/recruitment/public-offering-positions/2018/01/20180131_recruit.html