Co-op / Intern, Heterogenous Catalysis and Sorbents
About The Position
As a PhD Co-op in Catalysis and Porous Materials, you’ll join Lila’s Physical Sciences team to explore next-generation materials for catalytic and sorption applications. You will work closely with a cross-functional team to synthesize and characterize heterogeneous catalysts, metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), and other porous materials. You will also contribute to designing automated workflows that couple material discovery with machine learning to accelerate performance optimization. This is an opportunity to work at the frontier of materials science, automation, and AI-driven discovery.
Requirements
- Current PhD student in Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, or related field
- Experience with heterogeneous catalysts, MOFs, or porous materials synthesis
- Proficiency with materials synthesis and characterization (e.g., PXRD, BET, SEM, TGA, FTIR)
- Strong analytical skills and attention to detail in experimental design and data interpretation
- Excellent communication and teamwork skills
Nice To Haves
- Experience with gas sorption, breakthrough experiments, or dynamic adsorption studies
- Familiarity with flow reactors or automated material testing setups
- Exposure to high-throughput experimentation and lab automation platforms
- Programming or data analysis skills (e.g., Python, MATLAB, JMP)
- Interest in machine learning approaches to materials optimization
Responsibilities
- Design and execute experiments to investigate heterogeneous catalytic and sorption processes
- Synthesize and characterize MOFs, zeolites, and other porous materials using techniques such as PXRD, BET, TGA, and SEM
- Analyze experimental data and contribute to hypotheses and structure-property relationship models
- Collaborate with automation and ML teams to integrate high-throughput screening workflows
- Operate or support high-throughput platforms such as Chemspeed, Opentrons, or Unchained Labs systems for automated synthesis
- Document protocols, maintain accurate lab records, and present findings to technical stakeholders
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What This Job Offers
Career Level
Intern
Education Level
Ph.D. or professional degree
Number of Employees
101-250 employees
