Lead Scientist

Halo Materials is a venture-backed advanced materials company pioneering novel technologies to produce domestic, cost-competitive graphite for advanced energy and manufacturing supply chains.

• Lead installation, calibration, commissioning, and troubleshooting of core lab equipment to rapidly expand experimental capacity.
• Design and execute rigorous design-of-experiments (DOE) programs to optimize graphite growth parameters such as temperature, feedstock composition, residence time, and process conditions.
• Identify performance drivers, bottlenecks, and failure modes to continuously improve yield, purity, energy efficiency, and scalability.
• Build scalable systems for experimental data collection, storage, and analysis to ensure high-quality, decision-ready insights.
• Translate lab results into techno-economic inputs (e.g. cost per kg, energy intensity, throughput) to inform commercialization strategy.
• Develop and document SOPs for safe, repeatable, and scalable lab operations.
• Co-manage and mentor lab technicians to expand experimental capacity and execution speed.
• Train and develop junior technical hires, building a culture of rigor, ownership, and continuous improvement.
• Collaborate with external research partners to investigate underlying graphite growth mechanisms and unlock performance improvements.
• Work closely with peer R&D scientists and executive leadership to align technical milestones with company strategy and commercial objectives.
• Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, Materials Engineering, or closely related field
• 8+ years of experience in rigorous research and development environments such as university labs, deep tech startups, or corporate research teams.
• Proven ability to lead complex, multi-stakeholder projects—ideally involving lab environments, infrastructure, tech transfer, or industrial process scale-up.
• Strong organizational, strategic, and analytical skills; comfortable toggling between tactical execution and high-level planning.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences.
• Demonstrated success working closely with C-level leaders and managing competing priorities.
• Technical literacy in engineering, materials science, or chemical processes.
• Experience in adjacent industries where similar high-temperature, catalytic, carbon, or materials growth processes are used — such as petrochemicals, advanced ceramics, specialty chemicals, battery materials, semiconductors, metallurgy, or industrial gas processing.
• Experience with government grants, compliance reporting, or lab buildouts.
• A track record of execution — how you design experiments, make decisions with imperfect data, and drive results matters as much as where you’ve worked.
• Comfort operating in both research and production environments; experience in one or both is valuable, but your ability to move science toward application is what counts.
• Ownership mentality with high accountability and curiosity.
• Entrepreneurial speed balanced with technical discipline.
• Grit, resilience, and an ability to turn ambiguity into actionable next steps.