Graduate Research Assistantship at Purdue University

Scholarship: Fully-Funded ($24,520/year)
Degree:  B.S, M.S.
Nationality: International Students
Location: USA
Application deadlines: Spring of 2022


Scholarship Description:

The College of Agriculture at Purdue University is one of the world’s leading colleges of agricultural, food, life, and natural resource sciences and ranked sixth in the US in the 2019 QS World University Rankings.


Plant-parasitic nematodes are microscopic soil-borne roundworms, they infect and damage plant roots causing annual crop losses valued at $80-$118 billion worldwide. The Zhang lab is aimed to enhance understanding of plant-nematode interactions and plant resistance to nematodes at molecular, organismal and population levels using a diverse array of approaches. Research results have been published on prestigious journals, including Nature Plants, PLOS Pathogens, Molecular Plant Pathology, Plant Disease.

Prior research experience in plant-parasitic nematodes is NOT required for application. The successful applicants will have opportunities to be trained and work on basic research to study functions of virulent effector proteins secreted by plant-parasitic nematodes using protein-protein interactions, next-generation sequencing (NGS) and gene editing techniques; or applied project to develop novel bio-control agents against nematodes.

Available Subjects:

Molecular biology.

Eligibility criteria:

  • Students with molecular biology background are encouraged to apply.
  • English proficiency test (TOEFL or IELTS) is required for non-native English-speaking international applicants.

Application Procedure:

Interested students are asked to e-mail directly to Dr. Lei Zhang ([email protected]) the following documents: Resume, transcripts. The subject of the email should be “Research assistantship Spring 2022”. Screening of applications will begin on July 1, 2021 and will continue until the position has been filled.