Senior Research Scientist; PREP

PREP Research Associate

This position is part of the National Institute of Standards (NIST) Professional Research Experience (PREP) program. NIST provides NIST staff the opportunity to collaborate with academic researchers on mutually‑interesting projects, requiring a PREP award recipient status. Employees in this role will perform technical work that underpins the scientific research of the collaboration.

Open‑Architecture Additive Manufacturing Platform Development

As part of its effort to support U.S. manufacturers in advanced manufacturing, NIST has created an open‑architecture Additive Manufacturing (AM) platform consisting of open‑architecture AM testbeds—AMMT and LPDT—and a processing software utility known as Smart Additive Manufacturing (SAM). The Research Associate will assist NIST engineers in developing and improving this platform, including new mechanical, electrical, and optical hardware, control software for the AM testbeds, enhancements to SAM, experiment planning and execution at NIST and external synchrotron X‑ray facilities, and data processing, analysis, and dissemination efforts that support the open‑architecture AM platform.

• Analyzing, pre‑processing, and formatting data generated from NIST AM testbeds and comparing this data with datasets acquired from other NIST systems and external collaborators.
• Developing methods to fuse multi‑modality data from AM process monitoring for process anomaly detection and quality assessment.
• Presenting research results at internal and external meetings and assisting in organizing workshops to disseminate NIST open‑architecture AM platforms.
• Providing assistance with CAD, digital signal processing hardware and algorithms, and prototyping of new measurement systems on the AM testbeds.
• Assisting in deploying real‑time feedback control capabilities on AMMT and LPDT as a retrofit solution for existing AM systems.
• Providing technical support for the planning, execution, and data collection phases of experiments conducted on the AMMT at NIST.
• Providing end‑to‑end support for synchrotron‑based research, from the logistics of LPDT transport and setup at external facilities to the post‑experimental analysis of complex X‑ray diffraction data.

• PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering, Information Science, or a closely related field.
• Eight or more years of relevant research experience in additive manufacturing or closely related advanced manufacturing systems.
• Demonstrated expertise in laser‑based metal additive manufacturing processes.
• Extensive experience with in‑situ measurements and process monitoring applied to advanced manufacturing processes; experience with high‑speed visible and thermographic imaging techniques preferred.
• Strong background in developing applied machine learning and deep learning algorithms, with experience in machine vision and image processing applications preferred.
• Experience with AM system control frameworks and familiarity with industry AM communication protocols.
• Experience with FPGA‑based sensing systems, including familiarity with FPGA architectures and at least one FPGA programming or integration workflow.
• Demonstrated professional service and leadership experience, including organizing workshops, seminars, conferences, or hackathon‑style technical events.
• Strong oral and written communication skills, supported by a record of peer‑reviewed publications and presentations to technical and multidisciplinary audiences.

Equal Employment Opportunity. NIST is an equal‑opportunity employer and all qualified individuals are encouraged to apply. U.S. citizenship is preferred for this role.