Scientist, Research Scientist

The Structure/Property Relations group at Los Alamos National Laboratory is seeking a Scientist 2 to investigate deformation, damage, and fracture in structural and energetic materials through complementary experiments and modeling. You will join the Microstructure Response and Degradation Science team, which combines mechanical testing and microstructural characterization with physics-based modeling and high-performance computing. This work supports national security, nuclear energy, and other Laboratory missions.

You will design and conduct mechanical and micromechanical experiments, characterize microstructure and strain localization, develop and implement material models in finite element and multiphysics software, and perform large-scale simulations. Experimental measurements will guide model development, calibration, and validation, while simulations will help design experiments and interpret measured material response.

In this role, you will:

• Design and conduct mechanical and micromechanical experiments that quantify deformation, damage, and fracture under relevant loading conditions.
• Characterize microstructure and strain localization using digital image correlation, electron back scatter diffraction, microscopy, and related methods.
• Generate reproducible experimental datasets for model development and connect processing, microstructure, and measured mechanical response.
• Formulate, calibrate, verify, and validate constitutive and fracture models for structural and energetic materials.
• Develop, test, and maintain finite element research software for parallel simulations on CPU and GPU platforms.
• Perform high-performance simulations for homogenization, uncertainty quantification, and mult-material response, and compare predictions directly with experiments.
• Analyze experimental and modeling results, document methods, publish and present research, collaborate with multidisciplinary teams, and contribute to proposals and program deliverables.

Demonstrated experience designing and conducting materials experiments, including mechanical or micromechanical testing, microstructural characterization, and quantitative data analysis.

Demonstrated research experience in computational solid mechanics or computational materials science, including finite element or related numerical methods and models for plasticity, damage, fracture, or microstructure evolution.

Demonstrated ability to use experimental observations for model development, calibration, and validation and to use simulations to guide experiments and interpret measured response.

Experience developing, testing, and documenting scientific software and running parallel simulations on high-performance computing systems.

Demonstrated ability to carry technical work from problem formulation through implementation and analysis, and to communicate results in reports, publications, or presentations.

Ability to work independently and in multidisciplinary teams while maintaining a safe, secure, respectful work environment and meeting program deliverables.

Positions requires a Bachelor' degree in a STEM field from an accredited college and university and 4 years of related experience, typically with post-doctoral research experience at a university or national lab or equivalent experience directly related to the occupation.

• A doctoral degree in materials science, mechanical engineering, computational science, applied mathematics, or a closely related field.
• Advanced experience with experimental mechanics and microstructural characterization, including high-resolution digital image correlation, electron back scatter diffraction, microscopy, or small-scale mechanical testing.
• Experience developing or implementing finite-strain constitutive models, including large-strain plasticity, viscoelastic or viscoplastic response, crystal plasticity, or phase-field damage and fracture.
• Experience with performance-portable or open-source finite element software, matrix-free methods, multigrid solvers, and CPU or GPU computing; familiarity with PETSc, libCEED, MFEM, MOOSE, FEniCS, or comparable frameworks.
• Experience applying integrated experiments and modeling to energetic materials,…