About Benson HillBenson Hill empowers innovators to develop more healthy, tasty and sustainable food by unlocking the natural genetic diversity of plants. Benson Hill’s CropOS™ platform combines machine learning and big data with breeding techniques and plant biology to drastically accelerate and simplify the product development process. This platform allows for cost-effective and more efficient ways for companies to analyze and make improvements in plant genetics. Benson Hill brings a unique and holistic approach to our product and platform development, as we span a broader workflow involving trait and seed development, genome editing, and breeding all the way to creating better ingredients and varieties that tap a strong consumer demand for more flavorful and nutritious fruits and vegetables. More information can be found online at www.bensonhill.com. Follow us on Twitter at @BensonHillInc.

Our Purpose and Core Values

Our Core Values are a set of common principles we share that are fundamental to our company’s identity.

• Be Bold! We redefine boundaries by providing new solutions to difficult problems. Together we are driven to transform the future and will not allow the fear of failure to prevent us from innovating. We voice our opinions, embrace change, and challenge each other to think creatively.
• Be Inspired! We redefine boundaries by providing new solutions to difficult problems. Together we are driven to transform the future and will not allow the fear of failure to prevent us from innovating. We voice our opinions, embrace change, and challenge each other to think creatively.
• Be Real! We understand who we are, what we want to achieve, and what it takes to get there. We hold each other accountable through timely, candid, and well-intentioned feedback. Together we engage in honest communication and healthy debate that leads to success through true alignment.

Department Overview

The Crop Accelerator is a state-of-the-art, controlled environment research facility that allows Benson Hill to accelerate biology, by enabling the rapid development of feed and food ingredients, our innovative facility has dynamically adaptive growth chambers providing 365 days of optimal growing conditions. Furthermore, Benson Hill’s CropOS technology coupled with the Crop Accelerator’s world-leading high-throughput phenotyping and automation capabilities enables predictive outcomes allowing Benson Hill to develop varieties significantly faster than traditional cropping methods; essentially moving us beyond the speed of biology.

Position Summary

We are actively seeking a Sr Research Associate (SRA) to join our Crop Accelerator Team. The SRA will be responsible for providing support through coordination and execution of research projects, with autonomy, exercising independent judgment and ensuring clear communication with team members while working with other team members to identify inefficiencies in the current workflows/process and making suggestions for improvement.

SRA serves as department mentor and trainer to more junior members. Drives process improvement opportunities within and across teams. Leads the execution of projects while giving direction to others as needed. Independently prepares reports and provide regular updates on KPIs.

You Will:

(Essential Duties and Responsibilities)

• Work closely with partners across the Product & Platform Development Team, to ensure timelines and forecast are aligned; ensure data (KPIs and metrics) transparency across functions
• Be able to prioritize and work independently to meet goals and milestones
• Partner with Operations team and CEA teams to align on forecasting, planning, and daily work plans
• Accountable for plant health and sampling for all tissue culture-derived material; ensure SOPs and process maps are up to date
• Proficient user of internal databases and tracking systems
• Partner with IT/Data Science/Data Management teams to certify data integrity, update pipeline health metrics, and assist with any software issues.
• Responsible for data visualizations and reports
• Assign and communicate working schedules to staff as well as approve time off; audit employees’ time worked to ensure department is adequately resourced and that distribution of workload is equal.
• Must be able to communicate both positive and negative results to leadership and stakeholders in real time
• Coordinate the logistics of all plant grow-outs within the Trait Introgration workflow, as well as any process optimization experiments.
• Accountable to ensure all Standard Operating Procedures are up to date as well as training documents.
• Supervise contract workers who perform planting, tissue sampling, transplanting, tying, pollinating, and harvesting.
• Participate in weekend plant cross-pollination rotation as needed

You Have: (Competencies and Qualifications)

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Plant Biology or other relevant degree.

Experience

• +4 years relevant experience, preferably with an indoor growing and/or greenhouse
• Proficiency in data visualization tools will be considered a plus (QuickSight, AWS, R, PowerBi etc.)
• Experience in Plant cross-pollination is a plus

Software/Skillset

• Proficient at Microsoft suite of products
• Experience working in protected Ag, controlled environments, or a seed company preferred

Other

• Attention to detail, analytical skills, and collaborative nature
• Uses data to drive decision making and assess performance
• Self-starter, works with a sense of urgency and views problem solving as an impact opportunity
• Strong customer focus
• Ability to prioritize and work independently to meet goals and milestones
• Understands change is constant and embraces continuous improvement
• Weekend work rotation (plant cross-pollination) is required as needed