Summer Internship – Molecular Inbreeding Depression

LIC’s Research and Development (R&D) group is driving innovation to keep New Zealand farmers and their businesses at the forefront of the global dairy industry. Our world-class team is actively engaged in cutting-edge work across genetics, genomics, reproduction, animal health, statistics, and machine learning.

In partnership with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, we’re offering summer internships that provide hands-on experience across a diverse range of scientific and technical areas—from genetic analysis to data science and modelling.

Project Details:

Project Title:

The molecular architecture of inbreeding depression

Project scope:

Inbreeding depression is the reduction in animal fitness and performance resulting from matings between closely related individuals. LIC has recently initiated an ambitious new project to better understand this phenomenon, with the aim of implementing new strategies that minimise the negative effects of inbreeding. This project will use new genetic techniques to move beyond simple pedigree-based estimates of inbreeding and attempt to leverage the molecular effects that are assumed to cause negative inbreeding effects. To achieve this, the project will:

• Assess the utility of different inbreeding measures, with a focus on methods that make direct use of genomic information. These methods will be benchmarked against methods that rely on pedigree information alone.
• Assess how the large number of recessive genetic variants now known for dairy cattle may be responsible for inbreeding depression effects.
• Based on the results of ‘1’ and ‘2’ above, investigate how new inbreeding measures and molecular effects can be incorporated in breeding frameworks to minimise the undesirable consequences of inbreeding.

Your contribution:

• The scope of the student project will be partly determined by the skills and interests of the applicant, with projects weighted towards quantitative, molecular, and/or animal breeding as options. These areas align with each of the 3 major project aims indicated above and include:
• Benchmarking of individual software packages for quantifying inbreeding in genotyped dairy cattle populations.
• Compiling lists of recessive variants discovered from previous genetic mapping studies to assess their influence on inbreeding depression metrics.
• Extending the above to evaluate how other types of functional variant annotations may influence inbreeding depression (i.e. beyond variants highlighted through genetic mapping studies).
• Assessment of how new inbreeding knowledge could influence the LIC breeding scheme, and how new frameworks could influence sire selection and benefit animal health and performance

Expected Outputs:

As a key research and development initiative, this project offers a unique opportunity to contribute to innovative work that supports the future of animal breeding. Alongside advancing important research objectives, the role provides valuable hands-on experience for emerging scientists looking to build a career in genomics, genetics, and agricultural innovation.

Key Skills Required:

• Skills in multiple disciplines including quantitative genetics and/or molecular genetics and/or bioinformatics and/or population genetics and/or animal breeding.
• Experience in high-performance computing is also desirable.

To be eligible for these internships students must be:

• Legally permitted to work in New Zealand.
• Studying, or have studied, an undergraduate or postgraduate qualification at NZQA level 6-10 If study has been completed, the final semester should have ended within the last 12 months.
• Studying, or have studied, science, technology, engineering, design or business at a New Zealand tertiary education institute.
• Be able to work on-site at our Head Office in Newstead Hamilton for a substantial proportion of the internship.

Application information:

If you have worked for LIC before, you can still apply if:

• your job was part-time or temporary
• you only held one R&D Experience Grant internship with LIC.

Please attach an up-to-date CV and your academic transcript with your application.

The internship is a paid opportunity offering $29.90 per hour for a period of 10 weeks. You will be required to work a minimum of 30 hours per week, up to a maximum of 400 hours to be completed by 31 March 2027. Participation in the project will be based physically at LIC. At the conclusion of the internship, you will be required to deliver a presentation and submit a report.

Applications close: 13 Sept 2026 or earlier if the roles are filled