Postdoctoral Scholar - Mines NIST PREP Lead Data Infrastructure Engineer

Engineering a world of possibilities

Postdoctoral Scholar - Mines NIST PREP Lead Data Infrastructure Engineer

The Opportunity:

Colorado School of Mines and the Statistical Engineering Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology are seeking immediate applications for a post-doctoral position focusing on leading the development of scientific computing applications and tools. The tools will include both public-facing web infrastructure and code bases used by bench scientists for data collection and analysis. A primary focus will be establishing a central, high-resolution data repository for international clock and frequency standard measurements, providing essential data and collaborative infrastructure for the upcoming redefinition of the second.

The Professional Research Experience Program (PREP) is a cooperative partnership between the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Colorado School of Mines (Mines). Through PREP, Mines undergraduate and graduate students-as well as researchers holding a Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD-have the opportunity to conduct cutting-edge research in NIST laboratories while working closely with both NIST scientists and a Mines faculty advisor.

This dual mentorship ensures participants gain not only hands-on technical expertise but also guidance in connecting their NIST research to Mines' academic and professional pathways. All hires made through the NIST PREP program at Mines are employed by Colorado School of Mines.

Research

Title:

Postdoctoral Scholar / PREP
0004023 / Lead Data Infrastructure Software Engineer

Research

Location:

In Boulder, CO at the NIST campus with the Applied and Computational Statistics Group in the Information Technology Lab and in Golden, CO on the campus of Colorado School of Mines

The candidate's primary responsibilities may include:

● Leading the development of scientific computing applications and tools by partnering with domain experts, understanding the fundamental physics and meaning of the data, understanding stakeholder goals, and translating those goals into actionable software development plans and requirements.

● Guiding the creation and deployment of a data repository to store, maintain, and share results of interlaboratory measurements and analyses

● Guiding and performing the data curation and data engineering work to transform raw data into machine actionable datasets as guided by the FAIR data principles

● Managing and consolidating data streams originating from atomic clocks and the associated network components including, e.g., optical fiber links and optical frequency combs.

● Developing methodology for collating complex datasets involving multimodal data or heterogeneous processing pathways

● Guiding and extracting information from the curated data using statistical techniques and/or AI approaches

The ideal candidate will have the following skills, experience, and/or qualifications:

● Doctoral degree in at least one of the following fields: computer science, systems engineering, statistics, physics, or a closely-related discipline

● Proven leadership in cross-disciplinary environments; able to guide collaborative teams and provide strong scientific communication.

● Experience in scientific computing, workflow development and data management.

● Applied machine learning / data science.

● Reproducible research and production/dissemination of archival datasets.

● Enthusiasm for learning about diverse measurement science techniques.

● US Citizen Preferred.

NIST sponsor / advisor:
Amanda Koepke, Mathematical Statistician

Mines sponsor / advisor:
Gabe Fierro, Associate Professor of Computer Science

Anticipated start:
May 2026

Total Rewards:

$71,000 annual salary rate

Mines takes into consideration a combination of candidate's education, training and experience as well as the position's scope and complexity, the discretion and latitude required in the role, work location, and external market and internal value when determining a salary level for potential new employees.

Colorado School of Mines offers a robust portfolio of benefits for all employees. For this role, that includes:

* Flexible health and dental care…