Research Scientist/Engineer 1 - NSF-DMREF Project
About The Position
The Physics Department at the University of Washington has an outstanding opportunity for a Research Scientist/Engineer 1. This project is a collaborative effort with colleagues at SLAC and UCSB, aiming to advance understanding of how mobile low-valent metal cations influence catalytic performance, stability, and regeneration. It offers a unique opportunity to investigate the fundamental factors governing cation mobility in aluminosilicate materials through an integrated experimental-theoretical-computational approach. The research will probe the spatial extent and timescales of ion motion and how these depend on metal identity, bonding characteristics, oxide structure, proton density, ligands, and reaction conditions. By combining diffraction, spectroscopy, and advanced simulations, the work seeks to establish predictive fingerprints of metal-ion mobility and uncover general principles linking structure, bonding, and dynamics. Particular emphasis will be placed on understanding both local and long-range mobility under catalytically relevant conditions, providing a rigorous research environment at the interface of catalysis, materials chemistry, and computational modeling.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Physics, Chemistry, or a related field and one year of relevant experience to include high-performance computing, and Python-based data analysis.
- Equivalent combination of education/experience.
- Expertise in ab initio molecular dynamics, density functional theory and high-performance computing.
- Experience with Python programming.
- Strong communication skills and ability to work collaboratively across theory and experiment.
Nice To Haves
- PhD in Physics, Chemistry, or a related field.
- Experience with catalyst simulations.
- Experience with XAS/EXAFS spectroscopy modeling and its relation to electronic structure theory.
- Experience with codes like VASP, CP2K and NWChem.
- Familiarity with machine learning methods.
Responsibilities
- Perform large-scale electronic structure and atomistic simulations (DFT, AIMD, NEB) to study ion mobility in aluminosilicate and oxide frameworks.
- Generate datasets linking structure, environment, and ion mobility, and contribute to a database of bond force constants for EXAFS interpretation.
- Develop and apply spectroscopy modeling tools (FEFF10, StoBe, NWChem) to interpret X-ray absorption and EXAFS data.
- Collaborate closely with experimental partners on catalysis and spectroscopy studies.
- Interact with graduate students and contribute to a collaborative, interdisciplinary research environment.
- Present findings at conferences and publish in peer-reviewed journals.
Benefits
- For information about benefits for this position, visit https://www.washington.edu/jobs/benefits-for-uw-staff/
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Entry Level
Number of Employees
11-50 employees
