Electrical Engineer 2

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory • Richland, WA

10h

About The Position

At PNNL, our core capabilities are divided among major departments that we refer to as Directorates within the Lab, focused on a specific area of scientific research or other function, with its own leadership team and dedicated budget.
Our Science & Technology directorates include National Security, Earth and Biological Sciences, Physical and Computational Sciences, and Energy and Environment. In addition, we have an Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a Department of Energy, Office of Science user facility housed on the PNNL campus.
The Energy and Environment Directorate delivers science and technology solutions for the nation’s biggest energy and environmental challenges. Our more than 1,700 staff support the Department of Energy (DOE), delivering on key DOE mission areas including: modernizing our nation’s power grid to maintain a reliable, affordable, secure, and resilient electricity delivery infrastructure; research, development, validation, and effective utilization of renewable energy and efficiency technologies that improve the affordability, reliability, resiliency, and security of the American energy system; and resolving complex issues in nuclear science, energy, and environmental management.
The Earth Systems Science Division, part of the Energy and Environment Directorate, provides leadership and solutions that advance Earth system opportunities for energy systems and national security. We are a multidisciplinary division connected by a shared commitment to innovate and collaborate towards solving complex problems in the dynamic Earth system.
The Earth Systems Predictability and Resiliency Group provides operational intelligence and systems performance forecasting to enable decision support. We use this information to understand and predict how the coupling of human-Earth processes (e.g. climate, water, land use, and energy system interactions) control complex energy and environmental systems behavior. Our researchers use integrated approaches that include sensing and measurement, environmental forensics, high-performance computing, spatial and non-spatial statistics, spatiotemporal analysis models, GIS algorithms, machine learning and artificial intelligence methods, and geovisualization. This position will provide support to existing and emerging federally funded programs focused on characterization, monitoring, modeling and/or predicting complex earth, energy and environmental systems. This includes application areas of climate modeling, extreme events, human-earth interactions, environmental remediation, carbon sequestration, renewable generation, power systems operation and planning, grid resiliency, and small cities.
The Environmental Sensors team within the Earth System Predictability & Resiliency Group of ESSD is seeking candidates to lead key tasks and support interdisciplinary projects including:
Developing advanced sensing systems for earth system science and renewable energy applications. These next-generation sensors are not only fast, accurate, and versatile in terms of system performance but also lightweight, small, and soft. They can also be adapted for challenging environments such as deep subsurface and the Arctic environments, as well as for chemical detection.
Studying and mitigating the environmental impact of wind energy by detecting and tracking bats and birds using radio telemetry.
Studying the environmental impact of conventional hydropower and marine and hydrokinetic renewable energy systems by detecting and tracking fish or other animals in the river or ocean using underwater acoustic telemetry.
The primary scope of this position includes advanced sensor and electronics design and testing, signal acquisition in laboratory settings and field environment, generation of intellectual property, and writing of high-impact papers.

Requirements

• BS/BA and 2 years of relevant experience -OR-
• MS/MA -OR-
• PhD

Nice To Haves

• Hands-on experience with Radio Frequency telemetry system design and testing.
• Strong experience with low power electronics, RF circuits and subsystems including amplifiers, filters, oscillators, mixers, matching networks, and antenna.
• Experience with C/C++, MATLAB, Simulink, and assembly programming languages.
• Ability to effectively work and communicate within a multidisciplinary development team environment.
• Demonstrated record of scholarly publications, Patents or other intellectual property, and proposal writing.
• PhD degree in Electrical Engineering or related field with at least 2 years working experiences, or master’s degree with 4 years working experiences.

Responsibilities

• Researches, develops, designs, and tests electrical/electronic systems, components, equipment, and networks as well as their control and optimization theory and techniques.
• Adapts and applies control theory to design electrical/electronic systems with desired behaviors.
• Designs, develops, installs, and supervises all aspects of control systems and processes.
• Determines design approaches and parameters.
• Analyzes equipment to establish operating data, conducts experimental tests, and evaluates results.
• Selects components and equipment based on analysis of specifications and reliability.
• Researches, develops, and applies tools, simulations, and models of electric power systems and components addressing problems in planning, operations, economics, resilience, and optimization of system performance.
• Designs and develops new techniques and methodologies for control and integration of diverse energy resources and points of consumption.
• Develops and applies system architectures, models, and technologies for secure and reliable electric power systems and related technologies such as communications systems and grid cyber security.

Benefits

• Employees and their families are offered medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, robust telehealth care options, several mental health benefits, free wellness coaching, health savings account, flexible spending accounts, basic life insurance, disability insurance, employee assistance program, business travel insurance, tuition assistance, relocation, backup childcare, legal benefits, supplemental parental bonding leave, surrogacy and adoption assistance, and fertility support.
• Employees are automatically enrolled in our company-funded pension plan and may enroll in our 401 (k) savings plan with company match.
• Employees may accrue up to 120 vacation hours per year and may receive ten paid holidays per year.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree