Project Coordinator, Innovation Lab for Crop Improvement Coffee Improvement

As a university founded to be a place where “…any person can find instruction in any study,” diversity and inclusion are at the core of our values and mission. We strive to be a welcoming, caring, healthy, and equitable community where students, faculty, and staff with different backgrounds, perspectives, abilities, and experiences can learn, innovate, and work in an environment of respect, and feel empowered to engage in any community conversation. As a member of the Cornell University community, it is important to recognize our shared responsibility to each other to cultivate a culture of inclusion for all. Cornell Core values 

As an individual contributor you will model and support a culture of diversity, equity, inclusion, and wellbeing and continually seek to understand how your role, behaviors, and actions impact the success of this culture.    

While position responsibilities vary greatly, the Skills for Success and Leadership Skills for Success are foundational to what is expected of every employee and leader working at Cornell.  These skills are essential for individual and organizational success. Staff Skills for Success; Leadership Skills for Success

Department Background:

The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is a pioneer of purpose-driven science and Cornell University’s second largest college. We work across disciplines to tackle the challenges of our time through world-renowned research, education and outreach. The questions we probe and the answers we seek focus on three overlapping concerns: natural and human systems; food, energy and environmental resources; and social, physical and economic well-being.

The CALS School of Integrative of Plant Science (SIPS) encompasses five fields: Horticulture, Plant Biology, Plant Breeding & Genetics, Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology, and Soil and Crop Sciences. Combined there are 100+ faculty, ~200 undergraduate majors, 200+ graduate students in six fields, and 600+ other employees located in Ithaca, Geneva, and other satellite locations across New York State. The School offers two multi-disciplinary undergraduate majors: one in the Plant Sciences and the second in Agricultural Sciences. School faculty also contribute to the Biological Sciences, Biology and Society, Global Development, and Viticulture & Enology majors.

Position Summary:

While position responsibilities vary, every member of our community is expected to foster a culture of belonging and a psychologically healthy work environment by communicating across differences; being cooperative, collaborative, open, and welcoming; showing respect, compassion, and empathy; engaging and supporting others regardless of background or perspective; speaking up when others are being excluded or treated inappropriately; and supporting work/life integration of oneself and others.

Cornell University’s School of Integrative Plant Science (SIPS) is seeking a Project Coordinator to provide management for a Coffee Improvement Associate Award, a five-year program sponsored through the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Crop Improvement (ILCI).

The vision for Coffee Improvement Associate Award (CIAA) is to transform global coffee research to increase resilience and improve livelihoods for the 12.5 million smallholder coffee farmers around the world who produce 60% of the world’s coffee supply. CIAA started in October 2024 with a $5,485,000 grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and is a Cornell University-led collaboration with World Coffee Research (WCR), The Ohio State University (OSU), the Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO), and future collaborators in Brazil.

The vision for ILCI is to serve as a support system for national agricultural research institutions in target regions to identify, develop, pilot and transfer appropriate tools, technologies and methods, equipping them to deliver increased genetic gain and new varieties for key product profiles that advance economic growth, resilience and nutritional development goals of the US Government’s Global Food Security Strategy. ILCI started in 2019 with a five-year, $