Data Steward: Sequencing & Phenotyping for FAIR Plant Data

Delft; Delft; Remote; EUR 41,000 - 64,000; Full time

Job summary

TU Delft in collaboration with CropXR seeks a Data Steward to organize, describe and enable reuse of plant research data. You will work with researchers on sequencing and phenotyping data, ensuring consistent metadata and adherence to standards such as MIAPPE and ISA.

This role emphasizes FAIR data practices, data organization, and supporting data publication to repositories. Strong communication across disciplines is essential.

Qualifications

• Completed MSc or equivalent in a relevant field (plant sciences, biology, bioinformatics, biotechnology, genetics, computational biology, data science, etc.)
• Strong understanding of how biological research data is generated and used
• Familiarity with metadata, FAIR data principles and research data repositories; willingness to learn
• Clear English communication and ability to work in a collaborative, interdisciplinary research environment

Responsibilities

• Bridge between research, data and the CropXR data infrastructure.
• Support researchers with data management throughout the lifecycle (design, collection, publication, reuse).
• Work with sequencing and phenotyping data, including metadata, sensor and imaging data, and formats (FASTQ, BAM, VCF).
• Describe experiments and datasets using consistent metadata and standards (MIAPPE, ISA, CropXR procedures).
• Enhance FAIR data practices through practical conventions for organization, naming, identifiers, metadata, versioning and docs.
• Review datasets with researchers to identify missing information and advise on formats, repositories and access conditions.

Skills

FAIR data principles

Python

R

command-line tools

JSON

CSV

Education

MSc in plant sciences / biology / bioinformatics

Job description

TU Delft in collaboration with CropXR seeks a Data Steward to organize, describe and enable reuse of plant research data. You will work with researchers on sequencing and phenotyping data, ensuring consistent metadata and adherence to standards such as MIAPPE and ISA.

This role emphasizes FAIR data practices, data organization, and supporting data publication to repositories. Strong communication across disciplines is essential.