Plant Health Scientist I - Petit SA at Bayer

Role purpose:

• The Plant Health Scientist supports Breeding’s Plant Health strategy by executing high-quality disease phenotyping, diagnosis, inoculum production, inoculation, and rating across lab, greenhouse, and field environments. The role helps generate reliable pathology data, standardize screening practices, ensure safe operations, and translate disease observations into actionable insights that support breeding decisions and product advancement.  

Key responsibilities and tasks:
This individual will be required to contribute in all aspects of Plant Health that include lab operations (disease diagnosis, and pathogen inoculum production) and field/farm operations (pathogen inoculation and rating). Responsibilities include but are not limited to:  

• Execute Plant Health field characterization across target environments, ensuring robust disease observations, phenotyping quality, and interpretation of disease pressure relevant to breeding decisions.
• Support inoculum production workflows, including pathogen sourcing, multiplication, quality control, readiness planning, and alignment with biosafety, phytosanitary, and protocol standards.  
• Provide technical support for disease diagnosis, including symptom assessment, sample evaluation, pathogen identification, differential  diagnosis, and escalation of complex Plant Health cases requiring specialist pathology input.  
• Co-design, implement, optimize, and standardize disease-screening protocols and tools to strengthen consistency, reproducibility, and decision value across regional testing networks.
• Build regional Plant Health capability by coaching field teams, improving disease assessment discipline, and embedding fit-for-purpose pathology practices across locations.  
• Translate field pathology outputs into actionable technical insights for Breeding, Ag X, commercial, and regional stakeholders, enabling timely and evidence-based product decisions.    
• Ensure all staff working in the lab or fields are properly trained and compliant with the Bayer ESH policies to ensure safe operations of the research program.  
• Drive continuous improvement in data quality, protocol governance, diagnostic reliability, technical documentation, and operational efficiency.  
• Regional travel is required.  

Experience and qualifications:

• PhD, or M.Sc. in Plant Pathology or related discipline, with minimum 3 years applied pathology experience.   
• Strong expertise in field pathology, plant disease characterization, inoculum production, disease diagnostics, and applied disease-screening programs.   
• Demonstrated ability to interpret disease expression in field conditions, distinguish complex symptom patterns, and connect diagnostic outputs to practical breeding or product decisions.   
• Hands-on capability to produce, maintain, quality-check, and document pathogen inoculum under appropriate biosafety, phytosanitary, and protocol standards.   
• Ability to lead technical activities independently, troubleshoot operational issues, make sound recommendations, and influence cross-functional stakeholders without direct authority.  
• Strong communication, stakeholder-management, and capability-building skills across field, research, breeding, and commercial interfaces.  

Skills and competencies:

• Proactive, independent and earger to learn.  
• Flexible and and with an eye for innovation.  
• Excellent organizational and record keeping skills.  
• Detail oriented with the ability to balance multiple tasks and achieve deadlines.  
• Proficient in English language