Author: Segen Sara A. Habte

Categories
Fellowships & Scholarships

Air Force Science & Technology Fellowship Program (AF STFP)

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine administers postdoctoral and senior research awards at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), and the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA) under the Air Force Science & Technology Fellowship Program (AF STFP).

We are seeking highly qualified candidates who are U.S. citizens and hold, or anticipate earning, a doctorate in a variety of fields of science or engineering.
 

Application deadline dates (four annual review cycles):

  • February 1
  • May 1
  • August 1
  • November 1

Awardees have the opportunity to:

  • Conduct independent research in an area compatible with the interests of the Air Force laboratories
  • Devote full-time effort to research and publication
  • Access the excellent and often unique Air Force research facilities
  • Collaborate with leading scientists and engineers

Awardee benefits:

  • Base stipend starting at $76,542; may be higher based on experience
  • Health insurance (including dental and vision), relocation benefits, and a professional travel allowance

Applicants should contact prospective AFRL, AFIT and USAFA Research Adviser(s) at the lab(s) prior to the application deadline to discuss their research interests and funding opportunities.

For detailed program information, to search for AFRL, AFIT, and USAFA Research Opportunities, and to contact prospective Research Adviser(s), visit www.nas.edu/afstfp.

Categories
Fellowships & Scholarships

NRC Research Associateship Programs

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine administers postdoctoral and senior research awards at participating federal laboratories and affiliated institutions at locations throughout the U.S and abroad.

We are seeking highly qualified candidates who hold, or anticipate earning, a doctorate in a variety of fields of science or engineering. Degrees from foreign universities should be equivalent in training and research experience to a doctoral degree from a U.S. institution. Citizenship eligibility varies among the sponsoring laboratories.

Application deadline dates (four annual review cycles):

  • February 1
  • May 1
  • August 1
  • November 1

Awardees have the opportunity to:

  • Conduct independent research in an area compatible with the interests of the sponsoring laboratory
  • Devote full-time effort to research and publication
  • Access the excellent and often unique facilities of the federal research enterprise
  • Collaborate with leading scientists and engineers at the sponsoring laboratories

Awardee benefits include:

  • Stipends ranging from $45,000 to $94,500; may be higher based on experience
  • Health insurance (including dental and vision), relocation benefits, and a professional travel allowance 

For detailed program information, to search Research Opportunities, and to contact prospective Research Adviser(s) visit www.nas.edu/rap.

Categories
Jobs/Internships

Job Openings at the Dept. of Design at the Indian Institute of Technology in India.

The newly established Department of Design at Indian Institute of
Technology in Kanpur, India is very actively looking for individuals with
excellent academic and research record for full-time positions of
Mechanical Engineering Professor, Associate Professor, and Assistant
Professor.

Successful candidates will teach and conduct research in diverse areas of
Design, including those related to mechanical engineering. The attached
document provides details about our hiring needs.

If interest, contact Nachiketa Tiwari at ntiwari@iitk.ac.in.

Categories
Fellowships & Scholarships

Applications are open for the Michelson Philanthropies and Science Prize for Immunology!

Now accepting applications for the Michelson Philanthropies & Science Prize for Immunology.

The Michelson Philanthropies & Science Prize for Immunology focuses on transformative research in human immunology, with trans-disease applications to accelerate vaccine and immunotherapeutic discovery.

This international prize supports investigators 35 and younger, who apply their expertise to research that has a lasting impact on vaccine development and immunotherapy. It is open to researchers from a wide range of disciplines including computer science, artificial intelligence/machine learning, protein engineering, nanotechnology, genomics, parasitology and tropical medicine, neurodegenerative diseases, and gene editing.
 

Application deadline: Oct. 1, 2022

For more information, please visit this website. 

Categories
Jobs/Internships

Multiple SR PRA Engineer Positions at Southern Nuclear Operating

 Southern Nuclear Company is looking for a couple of early-career PRA engineers/or SR PRA engineers to support us.  Southern Nuclear is a great place to work with very supportive of innovative research, constantly improving and growing (Vogtle Unit 3 is about to come online with unit 4 to follow shortly after), and they are on the way to fully implementing High enrichment fuel as soon as they have test assembly out for testing. 

If interested, contact Faramarz Pournia at fpournia@southernco.com

Categories
Fellowships & Scholarships Jobs/Internships

New Research Opportunities with FDA

The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) is accepting applications for paid internship and fellowship opportunities at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

FDA Protein Biochemistry Fellowship
Location: Silver Spring, MD
Degree: Master’s or Doctoral degree received within the last 60 months or currently pursuing
Deadline: August 8, 2022

FDA Multiplicity Correction in Equivalence Testing Fellowship
Location: Silver Spring, MD
Degree: Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Doctoral degree received within the last 60 months or currently pursuing
Deadline: November 30, 2022

FDA Drug and Vaccine Safety Fellowship
Location: Silver Spring, MD
Degree: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree received within the last 60 months or anticipated by 11/30/22
Deadline: November 30, 2022

FDA Postgraduate Research Opportunity in Foodborne Microbial Pathogens
Location: Bedford Park, IL
Degree: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree received within the last 60 months or currently pursuing
Deadline: July 1, 2022

FDA Postgraduate Fellowship in Understanding Pathogenesis and Improving Detection of Hepatitis Viruses that Threaten Blood Safety
Location: Silver Spring, MD
Degree: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree received within the last 60 months
Deadline: August 3, 2022

FDA Summer Internship
Location: College Park, MD
Degree: Currently Pursuing Bachelor’s Degree
Deadline: August 8, 2022

FDA Fellowship in Phenotype to Genotype Development and Streamlining of Microbiome Laboratory and Bioinformatic Methods for Food and Food Ecologies
Location: College Park, MD
Degree: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree received within the last 60 months or anticipated by 7/11/22
Deadline: July 19, 2022

FDA Post-baccalaureate Fellowship
Location: College Park, MD
Degree: Bachelor’s degree received within the last 60 months or anticipated by 9/1/22
Deadline: July 31, 2022

FDA Fellowship in Wastewater Surveillance Testing
Location: College Park, MD
Degree: Currently pursuing a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree
Citizenship: LPR or US Citizen
Deadline: *Applications will be reviewed on a rolling-basis and this opportunity will remain open until filled
Categories
Jobs/Internships

Reliability Engineer at ManTech International Corporation

Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability (RAM) Lead


General Responsibilities
 Coordinate with the Operational Test Director and Lead Evaluator on Reliability, Availability, and
Maintainability (RAM)
 Performs analysis of documented user requirements and directs or assists in the design of test plans in
support of user requirements for moderately complex to complex RAM utilization to supplement OT&E
activities
 Participates in all phases of risk management assessment and software/hardware development
 Responsible for ensuring that the RAM test design and documentation support all applicable clients, agency
or industry standards timelines and budgets
 Coordinates and synchronizes evaluation activities and events with the Government T&E Manager and
other program and external stakeholders on RAM activity
 Responsible for ensuring that RAM conclusions and recommendations are fully supported by test results
 Coordinates OT&E evaluation status, strategies, plans, briefs and reports with other team members
 Presents briefs to DHS DOT&E
Skills Required
 Selected candidate must be trained/certified to the DHS T&E Certification Level II equivalency and
certified or willing to completed the DHS Operational Test Director (OTD) Training Course
 Must possess at least 7 years of experience in the RAM test and evaluation field and have experience
supporting DHS or equivalent Operational Test Agent services
 Selected candidate must be able to respond quickly to requirements and tasks with stringent deadlines in a demanding homeland security environment; possess strong critical thinking abilities and judgment skills; and be able to interact with various levels of people within and outside of a Government organization.
 Selected candidate must have knowledge and/or experience with DHS Acquisition Directives and
Acquisition Lifecycle Framework (AD102/ALF); knowledge, understanding and/or experience with the
DHS (or DoD equivalent) Test and Evaluation (T&E) policies, procedures and best practices for conducting,
monitoring and reviewing operational test and evaluation.
 Selected candidate must be able to support and perform assessments of T&E artifacts, such as the T&E
Master Plan (TEMP), Developmental Test and Evaluation Plans, Operational Test and Evaluation Plans,
Operational Requirements Documents, Mission Needs Statements with regard to RAM Testing, data
collection, and evaluation.
 Demonstrates written and oral communication skills – provides technical guidance to the project team in performance of the work, and reviews the quality of all work products.

 If interested, contact Tom Roltsch at roltsch@umd.edu or 703-915-1807.

Categories
Workshops, Seminars, & Events

Call for graduate student application for an NSF project!

Categories
Jobs/Internships

FDA Battery Longevity Research Postdoc/Internship Position at the Silver Spring FDA Campus

There is an opportunity for one potential PhD student to join FDA for a summer internship or a postdoctoral program to work on battery life time and longevity modeling and test methods for implants.

Key Roles
• Develop, improve, and validate battery models for better prediction of lithium-ion battery
performance and lifetime
• Formulate experiments to acquire data to train, validate and test battery models and aging
models
• Design and investigate test procedures as well as trade-off analysis to capture and improve
model parameters under all working conditions
• Explore and expand modeling capability to include various features such as balancing, SEI
layer growth, lithium plating, thermal runaway, etc.
• Work with cross-functional teams to develop and implement validated battery models for
different uses
• Generate simulation summary data/charts/reports
• Perform data analysis of cell/module/pack characterization tests
• Develop machine learning models for data analysis, optimization and prediction is plus

Basic Qualifications
• Ph.D. in engineering with battery modeling experience
• Fundamental knowledge of lithium-ion cell electrochemical model, electrical circuit model,
thermal model, and aging model
• Experienced in multiphysics-based models for electrochemical/electrical/thermal systems, as
well as aging mechanisms
• Proficiency in using MATLAB/Simulink, and other multiphysics software tools such as GT-
Autolion, COMSOL, BDS-STARCCM+, etc for battery simulation
• Exposure in using machine learning models for battery health prediction and optimization
• Familiar with battery testing protocols and efficient in writing codes to process and analyze
large data sets


If you are interested, please email your CV to this email address: hamed.ghods@fda.hhs.gov

Categories
Defenses

UPCOMING DISSERTATION DEFENSE – SEBASTIAN ROMO

Name: Sebastian Antonio Romo Duenas

Defense Date: June 21st, 2022 at 1pm.

Location: Glenn Martin Hall, EGR-2162.

Committee Members:

Jelena Srebric, Ph.D. (Advisor/Chair)

Reinhard Radermacher, Ph.D.

Bao Yang, Ph.D.

Dongxia Liu, Ph.D.

Peter Sunderland, Ph.D. (Dean’s Representative)


Title: A Validated Modeling Framework for Performance Analyses of Experimental and Proven Desalination Technologies

Abstract:

There is a wide array of desalination methods available for treating water at different salinities and production rates, but there are no systemic approaches on how to directly compare performance of different desalination systems. Existing comparison efforts focus solely on isolated performance metrics for a single desalination system, resulting in segregated case studies and/or incomparable systems. Numerical models for desalination systems can bridge this gap as they can take account of specific deployment needs. However, models in the literature are not mutually compatible, and they seldom disclose all the parameters or equations necessary for development and validation. This dissertation conceives a cross-comparison enabling simulation framework for the most relevant desalination processes. To achieve this, modeling approaches and thermophysical property correlations are curated from volumes of literature and used to create metamodels for six relevant desalination methods. The models are integrated into a simulation framework based on parameter hierarchies imposed in the model structures. The simulation suite is validated with data from the literature and actual operational data from desalination facilities in the field. 

The results show that the cross-comparison across equal parameter hierarchies is possible for all desalination technologies. A comparative analysis between the dominant technologies in the thermal and molecular transport families, Multi-Effect Distillation (MED) and Reverse Osmosis (RO), respectively, shows that energy intensity in MED is an order of magnitude greater for equivalent operational conditions, but actual operational costs are comparable. The models are further refined to reflect conditions from actual systems in the field and an iterative sampling algorithm is developed to find plausible operation scenarios given the scarce data from the field. This method achieves excellent agreement with data from four desalination plants with percent differences ranging between 2.5% and 9.3%. Furthermore, the results identify two plants performing 20% below their theoretically achievable recovery. Apart from evaluating existing deployments, the simulation suite helps identify a niche in the operational map of existing desalination methods characterized by high recovery rates and high feed salinities that is generally unfulfilled by conventional desalination.