Director, Laboratory Science & Operations

About the Company

At Edacious, we believe food should be plentiful AND nutritious. As the impacts of yield-obsessed food production on human and environmental health become clear, the ability to measure nutrition as easily as we measure yield becomes critical. Why? The most nutritious food is also the most flavorful and sustainable. Our mission is nutritional transparency, and our vision is to shift the food system so it may better serve consumers, producers, and our planet.

We are chemists, engineers, and systems-thinkers. We create novel hardware, software, and analysis tools for producers to understand the factors that produce more nutritious food and for buyers to know the nutritional quality of the food they buy. We are looking for teammates who are passionate about food, the food system, and human or environmental health!

The Job:

To lead and manage the operations of our analytical laboratory. You will be responsible for overseeing our laboratory science team focused on building novel datasets of food analytical chemistry data generated from mass spectroscopy instrumentation. You will oversee the operations, layout, process, and overall flow of our laboratory including planning and managing human and instrument resources. 

• Management of laboratory team of scientists, chemists, and technicians, including supervision, support, and scheduling as well as hiring of future team members. 
• Leading laboratory management, including oversight of data collection, analysis, troubleshooting, and maintenance and technical oversight of chromatography and mass spectrometry instruments (GC-MS, LC-MS, ICP-MS). 
• Selection and implementation of a Laboratory Management Information System appropriate for laboratory and company growth. 
• Scheduling and managing laboratory assets for high-throughput analysis of samples, including data generation for both customer reporting and database acquisition. 
• Oversee the preparation of analysis reports on food composition analysis generated from lab equipment using analytical techniques and statistical methods. 
• Ensuring completion of projects in a time effective manner that produces defensible data as it relates to quality control, quality assurance, validation and result reporting.
• Development, implementation and maintenance of laboratory policies in accordance with the Quality Management System that ensures the lab is operated in a productive and compliant manner with ISO 17025 as well as Health, Safety, and Hazardous Materials Handling training and procedures.
• Provides mentorship, training, prioritization and guidance to assigned staff on laboratory protocols and methods to meet client & project needs. Collaboration with an interdisciplinary team to complete project workflows. 
• Demonstrates a positive, collaborative attitude under pressure while ensuring the timely reporting of laboratory deliverables.
• Build a positive lab culture in line with company values and remote team engagement.

• 10 years of lab management experience with a focus on operations, services, QC/QA, and supervision.
• Previous experience managing a laboratory with multi-modal mass spectrometry technologies with an understanding of chromatographic separation, mass spectral fragmentation, and determination of unknown compounds. 
• Excellent organizational and problem solving skills.
• Demonstrated leadership and vision in managing staff and projects. 
• Strong communication skills. Experience with ISO 17025 accreditation and/or taken a lab through this process. In depth knowledge of wet chemistry as it relates to extraction of analytes from complex food matrices according to AOAC and modified AOAC methods.

• Experience in the food science, pharmaceutical, and/or biotechnology sector. MS or PhD with 10 years in analytical chemistry, chemistry, biochemistry, or nutritional biochemistry. 
• Experience with method development, validation, and deployment for analysis of common food analytes in multi-dimensional food types (e.g. vitamins, fatty acids, elements) and structure elucidation of unknown analytes using mass spectrometry. 
• Ideally you have previous experience working with extraction and analytical techniques in food matrices.

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Diversity is the foundation of life and has created this beautiful world we live in. Just as nature has shown us the importance of diversity in biology, it is critical to build this diversity into our social structures. To the extent that we can build communities and teams that work in symbiotic and constructive ways, contributing to greater levels of productivity and resilience, the more successful we will be. We wish to attract diverse individuals in experience, perspective, and culture. Our company must represent the broader global food system if we are to be successful in this endeavor and so we seek to recruit and build teams that represent the beautiful diversity of people and life present on this planet.