Chief Textile Scientist

Location option - Groton, Massachusetts or Floyd, Virginia

Summar

yA leading advanced materials company is creating a dedicated scientific role for a pioneer researcher: someone who works best at the frontier of a field, defines their own questions, and is energized by the absence of a roadmap. Your mandate is to identify, investigate, and de-risk platform-level opportunities in porous media materials and mechanisms that could define entirely new product categories.

You will report directly to senior R&D leadership, operating with genuine scientific autonomy. Title depends on experience and track record in the industry

.
Essential Functions And Responsibiliti

es
· Scan the porous media landscape nonwovens, polymer membranes, Meta materials, other fibrous structures for convergence zones and white-space opportunities invisible from within a single material clas

s.
· Formulate original research hypotheses, design experiments to de-risk them, and execute at TRL 1–3 with full scientific independenc

e.
· Build and maintain an active presence in the external scientific community: publish, present, collaborate with academic partners, and serve as the scientific antenna in your domai

n.
· Apply computational and AI-assisted tools high-throughput experimentation, design of experiments, Bayesian optimization to accelerate discovery cycle

s.
· Communicate findings clearly to senior R&D and executive leadership: what you found, what it means, and just as importantly what you killed and wh

y.
· Identify opportunities to connect emerging platform concepts to existing technical and manufacturing capabilities where genuine synergy exist

s.
· Lead or aid in the commercialization of platform concep

ts
Education And Experie

nce
· PhD in STEM category - Chemical, Mechanical, Material sciences, and other porous media related disciplines or BS/MS degrees with equivalent work experie

nce
· A track record of originating research and successful commercializati

on,
· First-author publications in peer-reviewed journals and/or Named inventorship (not just assign

ee)
· 10+ years of product development experie

nce
· Cross-domain literacy across the porous media landscape. Deep expertise in one material class is expect

ed;
· Computational and AI fluency: proficiency in design of experiments and Bayesian optimization (required);
Python or equivalent scripting for data analysis (strongly preferred); familiarity with high-throughput experimentation platforms or closed loop optimization systems (a real differentiato

r).
· An active, generative external scientific network, not passive literature consumption. Conference participation, invited presentations, peer-review activity, or academic collaboratio

ns.
· The intellectual disposition to propose ideas that contradict current product logic and defend them with da

ta.
· Previous technology scouting experie

nce