VP Research & Development (R&D

VP Research & Development (R&D)

At Met Ox International, we're pioneering the next era of energy security and abundance through breakthrough superconducting technology. As the Vice President Research & Development, you'll lead the scientific strategy that powers our next generation of high-temperature superconducting (HTS) technologies. You'll define the research roadmap, challenge technical assumptions, validate breakthrough concepts, and build the innovations that will shape the future of electric power transmission.

Based at our global headquarters in Houston, TX, the Vice President Research & Development reports directly to the Chief Operating Officer and serves as the executive leader responsible for the company's research organization. You will establish long-term technology strategy, prioritize research investments, lead multidisciplinary scientific teams, and accelerate the transition of new technologies from concept through commercialization. Working closely with Engineering, Manufacturing, Product Management, and executive leadership, you'll ensure Met Ox continues to advance the world's leading HTS technology platform.

• Defines and executes Met Ox's long-term technology strategy to establish global leadership in high-temperature superconducting (HTS) conductor performance, manufacturability, and cost competitiveness.
• Develops and maintains multi-year technology roadmaps focused on increasing critical current (Ic), engineering current density (Je), in-field performance, manufacturing yield, and production throughput.
• Leads technology development through a first-principles understanding of superconducting materials, thin-film growth, defect engineering, vortex pinning, and process physics.
• Identifies and prioritizes the highest-impact scientific and engineering challenges, translating them into focused research programs with measurable technical milestones.
• Serves as Met Ox's senior technical authority on REBCO materials, MOCVD processing, epitaxial thin-film growth, conductor architecture, and superconducting performance.
• Advises executive leadership on long-range technology investments, innovation strategy, competitive positioning, and emerging technologies.

• Leads the development of next-generation MOCVD processes that improve film quality, compositional control, deposition rate, uniformity, reproducibility, manufacturing scalability, and cost.
• Drives scientific understanding of precursor chemistry, gas-phase reactions, transport phenomena, nucleation, epitaxial growth, crystallization kinetics, oxygenation, and defect evolution during film deposition.
• Leads the development of advanced artificial pinning center technologies, defect engineering strategies, strain engineering, multilayer architectures, and nanoscale microstructure optimization to maximize superconducting performance.
• Establishes quantitative structure-process-property relationships governing critical current density, engineering current density, in-field performance, mechanical reliability, and long-length uniformity.
• Drives experimental, computational, and analytical approaches that replace empirical process development with predictive, science-based process optimization.
• Leads the design and development of next-generation MOCVD reactor platforms, deposition hardware, and process equipment to improve process control, throughput, uniformity, reliability, and manufacturing efficiency.
• Partners with Equipment Engineering to define reactor architecture, gas delivery systems, precursor delivery, thermal management, exhaust systems, and process control technologies for future manufacturing platforms.
• Develops advanced reaction diagnostics and in situ metrology capabilities to understand precursor decomposition, gas-phase chemistry, film growth dynamics, defect formation, and process stability.
• Integrates advanced diagnostics, modeling, machine learning, and digital process models to accelerate technology development and establish predictive process control.
• Evaluates emerging materials, deposition technologies, characterization methods, and analytical tools to strengthen Met Ox's technology leadership.

• Partners with Engineering, Manufacturing, and Operations to transition laboratory innovations into robust, repeatable, high-volume manufacturing processes.
• Develops scalable manufacturing processes capable of producing world-class HTS conductors with industry-leading consistency and yield.
• Establishes technology readiness levels, process qualification criteria, and manufacturing validation methodologies.
• Drives continuous improvement of process capability, statistical process control, reliability, and manufacturing robustness.
• Leads technical initiatives that establish record-setting critical current, engineering current density, and magnetic field performance while maintaining commercial manufacturability.
• Leverages large manufacturing datasets to identify subtle physical signals, optimize process performance, and accelerate data-driven…