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Job Type:
Employee
Duration in Months(for fixed-term jobs):
N/A
Job Family:
Laboratory Support
# of Open Positions:
1
Faculty/Service - Department:
School of Nutrition Sciences
Campus:
Ottawa, ON
Union Affiliation:
SSUO
Date Posted:
July 17, 2025
Applications must be received BEFORE:
July 28, 2025
Hours per week:
35
Salary Grade:
SSUO Grade 11
Salary Range:
$90,987.00 - $114,932.00About the Faculty of Health Sciences About Sciences
Make your mark with the Faculty of Health Sciences! Health matters to everyone and we are committed to becoming a nationally and internationally recognized leader in innovative approaches to active living, health promotion, and quality health services.
Our success lies in our students and our people. Join us and every day you will have the opportunity to make a meaningful impact as we grow together and make a great faculty even better.
Position purpose:
Under the authority of the Director of the School of Nutrition Sciences, the incumbent is responsible to coordinate all undergraduate food and nutrition sciences laboratories, to supervise the testing and the adaptation of experiments to the curriculum requirements of the School, to ensure that the demonstrations and tutorials are current and scientifically and pedagogically sound. Instructs teaching assistants, facilitators and students in safe working practices in the laboratory environment. Oversees and coordinates all laboratory activities within the School of Food and Nutrition Sciences ensuring efficient operation and compliance with occupational Health and Safety, and WHMIS legislation by demonstrators and academic standards. Supervises and coordinates the planning and execution of specialized activities and programs, including mini-courses and summer camps. Works closely with faculty, students, and external partners to support educational initiatives and objectives. Maintains laboratory resources, guides personnel, and implements best practices for a productive learning environment.
In this role, your responsibilities will include:
Laboratory instruction activities: Teaches a maximum of 6 credits courses and collaborates with other nutrition and food science professors in the creation and development of food science and nutrition courses. Instructs students and TAs in a variety of laboratories (food preparation, food analytics and food processing) to help them acquire necessary technical knowledge in the discipline. Responds to student/professor inquiries and concerns.
Laboratory and operations management: Plans and coordinates the day-to-day operation of all course laboratories in both English and French. This includes instructing, training and supervising teaching assistants, and part-time technicians in planning demonstrations throughout the academic year as well as offering remedial instruction to teaching assistants and professors where needed. Coordinates the use of labs for other activities such as practicums, community education classes, summer camps, student association activities and demonstrations.
Learning materials preparation: In consultation with professors, contributes to the development of food science and nutrition courses including learning activities, lab experiments and recipe preparations for culinary courses to ensure alignment between lecture and lab materials. Collaborates with professors to create and maintain laboratory manuals, ensuring consistent formatting, accurate and current technical terminology.
Maintenance of laboratory equipment: Responsible for the operation, maintenance, calibration and troubleshooting of the laboratory’s equipment. Performs minor repairs to equipment, trains teaching-assistants and other users to use equipment properly and safely. Ensures the availability and proper set-up as well as maintains the inventory of equipment and supplies needed for each laboratory. Keep track of the equipment use, maintenance and calibration.
Testing: Oversees the testing of new learning activities/experiments to ensure that they work, meet the intended pedagogical objectives, are feasible with the existing installation and equipment and are repeatable by students according to their level of knowledge of the discipline. Corrects existing learning activities/experiments which are not working properly.
Health and safety protocols: Ensures compliance of all users with health, safety, and security standards in the food analysis and food processing labs, as well as public health standards in the food preparation lab, sensory lab, and servery.
Purchasing and budget planning duties: Participates in budget planning for food, food supplies, equipment and other laboratory supplies necessary for teaching labs. Prepares all related requisitions according to the approved budget and creates expense reports and collaborates with the finance administrative agent to reconcile all p-card transactions. Recommends the purchase of new equipment and the allocation of resources to the School Director.
Software management: Manages and updates laboratory courses in Brightspace to provide access to electronic information (ex: lab protocols, lab schedules) to students and professors. Manages and trains users on specialized software related to food science and nutrition required for running the analytical equipment such as Chromeleon Chromatography Data System software, OpenLab software, Texture Pro software, in addition to software required for nutrition labelling, recipe reformulations and reverse engineering (ex: TechWizard).
What you will bring:
Graduate degree in Food Sciences (Ph.D. preferred).
Food handler certificate from a recognized Canadian organization.
Minimum of 5 years’ experience in a similar position working in a lab-related environment.
Knowledge and extensive experience of laboratory protocols and procedures in food preparation and analysis.
Comprehensive knowledge of application software such as web site applications, data collection software, databases, spreadsheets, word-processing, etc.
Knowledge of scientific and specialized software such as Chromeleon Chromatography Data System software, OpenLab software, Texture Pro software, etc.
Must be able to communicate difficult concepts and procedures in a clear and concise manner.
Good interpersonal skills.
Ability to design and implement experiments by integrating existing equipment, installations, and sound scientific methods into learning experience to support and enhance course theory.
Ability to analyze, troubleshoot and resolve issues in learning activities/experiments while maintaining their educational and scientific validity.
Fluent in speaking, writing and reading French and English.
Key Competencies at uOttawa:
Here are the required competencies for all or our employees at uOttawa:
Planning: Organize in time a series of actions or events in order to realize an objective or a project. Plan and organize own work and priorities in regular daily activities.
Initiative: Demonstrate creativity and initiative to suggest improvements and encourage positive results. Is proactive and self-starting. Show availability and willingness to go above and beyond whenever it is possible.
Client Service Orientation: Help or serve others to meet their needs. This implies anticipating and identifying the needs of internal and external clients and finding solutions on how to meet them.
Teamwork and Cooperation: Cooperate and work well with other members of the team to reach common goal(s). Accept and give constructive feedback. Able to adjust own behaviour to reach the goals of the team.
The University of Ottawa embraces diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We are passionate about our people and committed to employment equity. We foster a culture of respect, teamwork and inclusion, where collaboration, innovation, and creativity fuel our quest for research and teaching excellence. While all qualified persons are invited to apply, we welcome applications from qualified Indigenous persons, racialized persons, persons with disabilities, women and LGBTQIA2S+ persons. The University is committed to creating and maintaining an accessible, barrier-free work environment. The University is also committed to working with applicants with disabilities requesting accommodation during the recruitment, assessment and selection processes. Applicants with disabilities may contact hrtalentmanagement@uottawa.ca to communicate the accommodation need. All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.
Note: if this is a union position: The hiring process will be governed by the current collective agreement related to the union affiliation noted above; you can click here to find out more.
If this is a front-line position with responsibilities to interact with students, selected candidates must be rated at the Low Advanced proficiency level or higher for both oral comprehension and reading comprehension in their second official language. The rating is determined by a proficiency test designed by the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute.
Prior to May 1, 2022, the University required all students, faculty, staff, and visitors (including contractors) to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 as defined in Policy 129 – Covid-19 Vaccination. This policy was suspended effective May 1, 2022 but may be reinstated at any point in the future depending on public health guidelines and the recommendations of experts.
