Graduate R&D Intern - Materials Science

MSA, The Safety Company • Cranberry Township, PA

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About The Position

MSA Safety’s Materials Science team is looking for an engaged and inquisitive team member with a passion for materials science and continuous improvement. If you like materials and technology, have a customer-focused mindset, and are imaginative, creative, and hands-on, we want to hear from you! As a Graduate R&D Intern in Materials Science at MSA Safety, you will support the design and development of the next generation of safety equipment. This challenging but exciting work helps to keep people safe in the most dangerous environments, and ultimately safeguards workers and their communities.
This role is an extended internship opportunity (i.e. 9 months - 1 year) for students currently pursuing and/or recently completed an advanced graduate degree in Materials Science and Engineering.

Requirements

• Can commit to a continuous extended internship (i.e. 9 months - 1 year duration).
• Want your work to be meaningful.
• Eager to learn and adaptable.
• Enjoy work that is dynamic and varied from day-to-day.
• Enjoy working within global teams and with a diverse group of peers, whose experience may range from interns to PhD-level experts.
• Solid technical foundation in material properties and behaviors.
• Deep understanding of mechanical, chemical, and thermal material properties, and how they relate to material failure and part design.
• Interested in a broad range of material domains, including thermoplastics/polymers, polymeric coatings, metals, and/or composites.
• Experience working with a variety of analytical instruments, such as FTIR, GC-MS, DSC, XRF, XRD, and/or SEM.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to manage your time across multiple simultaneous projects.
• Currently pursuing and/or successful completion of an advanced graduate degree (Master’s or Ph.D.) in Materials Science and Engineering.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with Atlassian Confluence & JIRA, Microsoft 365, Miro, Minitab, PowerBI
• Experience in applying Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) principles and/or inferential statistics.

Responsibilities

• Apply technical expertise and instrumental analysis to troubleshoot and resolve a broad variety of materials-related product, production, and/or sourcing challenges.
• Support the continuous improvement of MSA product performance in demanding, real-world applications through materials-related investigations.
• Coordinate and perform exploratory destructive and non-destructive testing on product samples to better understand expected mechanical, thermal, and chemical performance.
• Utilize in-house analytical equipment to support engineering conclusions and recommendations.
• Analyze and interpret data, making recommendations on next steps. Capture technical decision-making in reports and presentations that are appropriate for broad technical audiences.
• Keep informed of relevant material innovations and trends that could enable the next generation of safety equipment.
• Research relevant new materials, conduct probing experiments into feasibility, and share results with engineering leadership and product development teams.

What This Job Offers

• Career Level: Intern