Director of Research & Development

Still Bright•Kenilworth, NJ

1d•$217,000 - $217,000•Onsite

About The Position

Still Bright is bringing the first viable hydrometallurgical alternative to copper smelting to market at a moment when global copper demand is outpacing supply by historic margins. Our proprietary RACER (Rapid and Complete Electrochemical Reduction) process delivers fast, complete copper extraction while recovering precious and critical co-products, and as a closed-loop system it offers precise control over outputs and radically reduces environmental impact. Backed by top-tier investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Material Impact, the team is moving from pilot execution into the next stages of commercial deployment. The Director of Research & Development is accountable for building and leading Still Bright’s research function and delivering the experimental, technical, and team outcomes required to de-risk the RACER process chemistry and its integration with downstream recovery as the company moves from pilot through demonstration and into commercial deployment. This role owns the applied and exploratory research pipeline: the experimental programs that advance copper extraction, qualify new and complex feedstocks, map the deportment of elements through the system, and establish the compatibility of RACER with solvent extraction, electrowinning, and downstream flotation for co-product recovery. Understanding how every element deports through the RACER system, and qualifying the company’s pipeline of new and complex feedstocks against it, is owned by this role. As Still Bright moves from a small set of proven feedstocks toward the wide range of ores, concentrates, and tailings the commercial business will process, the Director owns the science that determines what RACER can take, what it recovers, and where deleterious elements go. Given the size of the team, this is a hands-on technical leadership role: the person in this seat is in the lab regularly, not exclusively in supervisory mode. The Director sets the technical standard for experimental rigor, data quality, and process-design discipline, and mentors scientists, engineers, and technicians on the team. Working in close alignment with the Chief Technology Officer, the Director independently drives execution against the research priorities the Chief Technology Officer sets, leads and develops a high-performing team of scientists, engineers, and senior technicians, manages consultants and external partners, mitigates technical and operational risks, and ensures environmental and ethical responsibility. The role translates those priorities into experimental designs and resourcing plans, guides experimental and commissioning work, and makes data-driven decisions about how that work is executed to determine pilot readiness.

Requirements

Doctorate in chemical engineering, metallurgical engineering, electrochemistry, or a related field strongly preferred; a Master’s with commensurate experience will be considered.
Minimum of 10 years of industrial or research experience, including 1–2 years at the Director level or 3–4 years at the manager level, in hydrometallurgy, electrochemistry, or process engineering within the mining or metallurgy industry.
Deep understanding of elemental deportment and mass-balance accounting of trace, co-product, and deleterious elements across complex feedstocks.
Direct people management experience leading a team of scientists, engineers, or senior technicians on technical execution work.
Excellent understanding of copper mineralogy and processing, especially hydrometallurgical methods and emerging technologies.
Demonstrated hands-on contributor capability: comfortable being in the lab and on the pilot system regularly.
Strong experimental design, data analysis, and project-management discipline—schedules, milestones, resource allocation, and clear progress reporting.
Comfort in a startup or scale-up environment where infrastructure and processes are still being built.
Some travel will be required for pilot and feedstock testing.

Nice To Haves

Demonstrated expertise in solid, liquid, and gaseous phase characterization techniques (XRD, SEM, XRF, QEMSCAN, ICP-MS, Fire Assay).
Direct experience with pilot-plant or demonstration-scale metallurgical systems, including commissioning, operation, and troubleshooting.
Proven track record translating bench-scale results into pilot-scale performance, and integrating multiple unit operations into a continuous or semi-continuous process.
Additional consideration for experience managing copper ore impurities such as arsenic, bismuth, and gold.
Experience with one or more of: vanadium electrochemistry, sulfide leaching chemistry, solvent extraction–electrowinning, continuous stirred tank reactor design and operation.
Familiarity with process controls, instrumentation, and real-time performance monitoring.
Leadership of a pilot campaign through sustained operation or scale-up decision milestones.
Contribution to demo-plant design, studies, or commercial deployment readiness.
Familiarity with quality management systems (ISO 9001 or equivalent) and document control discipline.
Spanish-language proficiency.

Responsibilities

Own the company’s understanding of elemental deportment across the RACER system: how copper, precious metals, co-products, and deleterious elements (arsenic, bismuth, antimony, and others) partition across leaching, reduction, solvent extraction, electrowinning, and downstream flotation, and how that partitioning shifts with each feedstock.
Own qualification of new and complex feedstocks: direct the characterization and testwork (XRD, SEM, XRF, QEMSCAN, ICP-MS, Fire Assay) that determines whether a given concentrate, ore, or tailings stream is compatible with RACER, and define the operating adjustments required to process it.
Build and maintain the deportment and recovery models that translate feedstock variability into defensible performance expectations, and keep them current as the company’s feedstock pipeline grows.
Lead day-to-day execution of the research and process-development program, including experimental design, scheduling, data collection, and analysis.
Translate the Chief Technology Officer’s research priorities into experimental programs: design the experiments and define the resources, equipment, personnel, and timelines required to execute them across RACER chemistry, feedstock diversification, co-product recovery, and downstream integration.
Manage a team of research scientists, engineers, and senior technicians, with direct responsibility for performance management, professional development, and technical mentorship.
Direct the research establishing RACER’s compatibility with solvent extraction, electrowinning, and downstream flotation, and the recovery of copper and saleable by-products.
Predict metallurgical and chemical challenges and opportunities for different feedstock opportunities, as well as upstream and downstream mining processes.
Own bench-level execution of site-specific feedstock testing: ore characterization protocols, recovery curve generation, deleterious-element handling experiments, and the data work that feeds the company’s economic models.
Act as a resident expert for the business and technical teams on all things copper processing, helping integrate RACER seamlessly with mining operations and typical processing considerations.
Own quality control of experimental data and technical documentation—data integrity, calibration discipline, reproducibility of experimental conditions, and clean record-keeping that supports decision-making and future audit defensibility.
Uphold excellence in experimentation plans, laboratory procedures and safety, and research records. Working mostly in-person is required to ensure proper oversight of laboratory work.