Join the Cotney Lab!      

We’re looking for great students, postdocs, and scientists to join our team. We are especially interested in molecular biologists, computer scientists, and those that have experience in both of these realms related to functional genomics. If you don’t fit into one of these categories, but you’re a really creative scientist of any variety, and are interested in the sorts of things we do, reach out to us!


Postdoctoral Positions

Postdoctoral positions in comparative functional genomics for both experienced molecular biologists and computational biologists are available in the Cotney Lab within the Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences and the Institute for Systems Genomics at UConn Health . Our laboratory is applying functional genomics techniques (ChIP-Seq, RNA-Seq, ChIA-PET, Hi-C, etc) to identify novel gene regulatory elements in early mammalian embryonic development. We seek to understand the genetic basis of the evolution of the human form and developmental disorders by integrating multiple types of functional genomics data from a variety of tissues and species.

We seek molecular biologists with a variety of experimental experience including:

  • General tissue culture techniques, including culturing of human and mouse cell lines, primary cells, embryonic stem cells and iPS.
  • Transient and stable cell transfection, virus­-based infection.
  • RNAi­-based knock­down and vector­ mediated ectopic expression, marker­based positive clone selection.
  • Cell-­based assays to evaluate viability.
  • Protein analysis by western blotting, enzymatic assays.
  • DNA/RNA sequencing
  • Chromatin immunoprecipitation
  • Genome editing (CRISPR)
  • Enhancer screens and activity measurement

We seek computational biologists with experience related to functional genomics:

  • Scripting languages such as Python, Perl, or Awk
  • Statistical packages such as R or Matlab
  • Next generation sequencing data such as ChIP-Seq, RNA-Seq, etc.
  • Statistical genetics including GWAS and 1000 Genomes data sets.
  • Comparative genomics such as multi-species alignments and conservation analysis.
  • Visualization of genomic data including Circos, IGV, UCSC Genome browser.
  • 3D Modeling or experience with game development

The ideal candidate would have a mixture of both experimental and computational skills.


Graduate and Professional Students

We will be accepting graduate students from the Genetics and Developmental Biology Graduate program and professional students from the Schools of Medicine and Dentistry for rotations beginning in the Spring of 2024.  Please inquire for possible projects.


How to Apply

Applicants should send a CV and a list of three references by email to cotney@uchc.edu or via the form below.

(sorry, generic letters do not receive replies)

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