Director- Analytical Chemistry

Company: Impossible Foods
Location: Redwood City
Posted on: January 4, 2021

Job Description:

Impossible Foods is addressing the most catastrophic threats facing humanity: climate change and biodiversity collapse. A global transition to a plant-based food system will turn back the clock on atmospheric CO2 levels, restore natural ecosystems and reverse meltdown in wildlife biomass. The easiest -- if not only -- way to make our civilization sustainable is to eliminate livestock, the most dangerous technology on Earth. But humans won't give up meat. So we need to make meat better -- more delicious and more nutritious, without animals as the underlying production technology. That means that making meat sustainably is the most important and urgent problem for the global scientific community. Impossible Foods' mission is to completely replace the use of animals as a food-production technology by offering consumers everything they currently value about animal products -- and making products that are vastly superior to their animal analogues. To do this, we are taking a revolutionary scientific and market-based approach. We are inventing efficient, sustainable ways to transform ingredients from plants into meat, fish and dairy foods that deliver all the pleasures and nutritional benefits consumers demand, without the destructive environmental or public health impact. Our world-class R&D team has been building the know-how and technology platform to produce meat, fish and dairy foods from plants. Impossible Foods is experiencing rapid growth and is resolutely committed to leading all aspects of the plant-based food revolution-from discovery to commercial production. The only thing that will separate Impossible Foods from success and failure is our ability to recruit more world-class experts. Want to join? Check out the job opening and requirements below: Impossible Foods is looking for a creative, innovative and mission-aligned Director of Analytics to join the research team! As a leader of the Analytical core facility, you will lead and maintain state-of-the-art analytical capabilities at Impossible Foods. Impossible R&D is a fast paced, collaborative team and you will form strong working relationships with several research groups. The Analytical Core will work with the project teams to identify best suited methods for research objectives to enable characterization of plant-based and animal-based materials in order to solve a variety of sophisticated research problems. In addition, you will also manage and mentor scientists, research associates, instrument technicians and operations managers, guiding their work, and their professional and scientific development. You will be expected to run a team that demonstrates technical and operational excellence, while also being unafraid to push novel method development and experimentation, and integrate state of the art analytical technology to existing workflows. Background in analytical chemistry and experience with setting up or running an analytical facility is a plus, but motivated scientists from related backgrounds will be considered. You Will:

• Manage and improve LC/MS and GC/MS platforms and associated data analysis pipelines.
• Work with analytics team and other project teams to develop suitable analytical methods and successful delivery of high quality information from characterization efforts answering questions from strain development, protein characterization, flavor chemistry and product research efforts.
• Be a champion of data quality and work with project leads to drive the directions of research projects towards definite conclusions.
• Communicate findings and work with R&D leadership team to identify upcoming projects and analytical needs.
• Maintain operational excellence of the core facility. Be ultimately responsible in ensuring the analytical facility is able to serve all of R&D needs, including instrument maintenance, scheduling, user training and support.
• Allocate and manage analytical resources across a wide range of product and research areas.
• Mentor and develop junior team members. You Have:
  • PhD in Biochemistry, Analytical Chemistry or related field with 10+ years of postgraduate experience with LC/MS and GC/MS based platforms.
  • Broad experience in working on analytical characterization of volatile and non-volatile chemistry in complex matrices, metabolomics, lipidomics, and proteomics.
  • Demonstrated leadership abilities, experience working in a cross-functional environment, strong communication and people skills to be able to successfully influence and collaborate with teams with diverse scientific backgrounds to implement analytical chemistry best practices for existing and planned future research efforts.
  • The drive to be a leader, teacher and innovator with LC/MS instrumentation and software, Thermo platform is preferred (Orbitrap, Xcalibur, Compound Discoverer, LipidSearch).
  • The drive to be a leader, teacher and innovator with GC and GCMS instrumentation comfortable working with various instrument platforms and vendors (Leco, Gerstel, Agilent, Thermo).
  • The ability to quickly identify the best analytical solution to a given problem through deep expertise in chromatography development and troubleshooting.
  • Expertise in scientific programming is a plusExperience managing, developing small molecule and proteomic data analysis pipelines and in-house software development is a plus.
  • Drive to establish and maintain scientific and operational excellence.
  • Positive attitude to support team and ability to foster positivity in a constantly evolving environment. Impossible Foods Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.

Keywords: Impossible Foods, Redwood City , Director- Analytical Chemistry, Executive , Redwood City, California