Postdoctoral Fellow; PREP

PREP Research Associate

Research

Title:

Vibrational micro-spectroscopist for detecting and identifying irregularly shaped particles (U.S. Citizens Preferred)

• Develop methods using OPTIR microscopy to characterize nonspherical polymeric particles.
• Design and evaluate experimental systems to examine signal origin, measurement artifacts, and depth‑dependent compositional relationships in OPTIR with pristine and chemically modified control samples.
• Develop performance metric benchmarks for OPTIR measurements that can be used for evaluating data and method transferability to widely used IR‑based and Raman techniques.
• Contribute to NIST efforts for evaluating and characterizing crystallinity, molecular structure, and composition of candidate reference materials, which include irregularly shaped, polymeric particles and asymmetric materials arrays.

This opportunity is for an associate researcher in the NIST Materials Measurement Science Division for a term of one year, with options to renew. Associate researchers are not federal employees but work alongside NIST researchers and with NIST’s world‑class instrumentation. Relocation expenses will not be provided. U.S. citizens hired into associate positions may have the opportunity to seek longer‑term federal employment.

• Ph.D. degree in physical sciences, materials engineering, or chemical engineering.
• Expertise in high‑resolution chemical mapping of materials and tissues with OPTIR (preferred), Raman, or IR microspectroscopy.
• Expertise in multivariate statistical methods used for evaluating vibrational spectroscopy data (OPTIR preferred), including chemometrics, adapted ML tools, or other applied methods.
• Demonstrated successful participation as a member of multidisciplinary research teams.

Authority: 15 U.S.C. § 278g‑1(e)(1) and (e)(3) and 15 U.S.C. § 272(b) and (c)

Purpose:

The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) hosts the Professional Research Experience Program (PREP) which is designed to provide valuable laboratory experience and financial assistance to undergraduates, post‑bachelor’s degree holders, graduate students, master’s degree holders, postdocs, and faculty.

PREP is a 5‑year cooperative agreement between NIST laboratories and participating PREP universities to establish a collaborative research relationship between NIST and U.S. institutions of higher education in the following disciplines including (but may not be limited to) biochemistry, biological sciences, chemistry, computer science, engineering, electronics, materials science, mathematics, nanoscale science, neutron science, physical science, physics, and statistics.

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Disclosure:
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