Fellow

2-year appointment with option to extend
· Full-time
· Stanford

The Fellow will lead the implementation of OpenBESS, STEER's open modelling platform for battery energy storage systems. OpenBESS is one of four keystone models in Open Energy - STEER's open modelling ecosystem for the battery value chain, running from minerals and synthesis, through cells and packs, to grid-scale systems.

OpenBESS propagates cell designs through container architecture and site design into installed cost, availability, and project-finance outcomes - the layers where public tools currently stop, and where tens of billions of dollars in annual procurement and investment decisions are made every year.

You would work as part of a team of four on OpenBESS, alongside the wider STEER software and battery group.

• Own the modelling chain end to end, from cell designs through container architecture and site design to installed cost, performance, and availability
• Extend that chain into project finance, so that engineering choices connect to the metrics investors and developers actually use
• Build and validate a reference library of real systems, benchmarked against published specifications and from real project data from STEER partners
• Work directly with practitioners - developers, EPCs, utilities, and market analysts - and help organise the flagship STEER convenings that elevate OpenBESS beyond academic circles, stress test its findings and priotize pain points across the BESS value chain
• Take the platform through its release milestones, from shared schemas and core architecture to a working application, and publish the methodology and the findings

• PhD in engineering, the physical sciences, or techno-economics, with experience of batteries or energy systems
• Industry experience, or a track record of engaging industry from academia - you should be comfortable in a room with operators, developers, and EPCs
• Able to implement your own work in software, and keen to get better  do not need to arrive as a software engineer, but you do need to build in Python and pick up our stack (Python, Dash, AWS, agentic workflows). We are particularly interested in applicants with strong foundational knowledge on how software systems work, best practices and how to build scalably
• Comfortable convening people - organising and running workshops, summits, and structured practitioner sessions, as well as presenting results at them

• Project-finance literacy - NPV and IRR, capital stack, tax credits, revenue stacking, or diligence on real projects
• Grid-scale storage experience - BESS architecture, site electrical design, EPC, or power electronics
• Open-source experience - contributing to, maintaining, or publishing scientific software

• Dr. Nicholas Siemons (staff)

STEER is a partnership between Stanford’s Precourt Institute for Energy and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Our mission is to use deep scientific analysis to overcome the scaling uncertainties of emerging energy technologies - guiding what to build, where to innovate, and how to invest. Our work is structured around four analytical domains - Supply Chain Physics, Technology Roadmaps, Function-driven Demand, and Ecosystems of Scale - applied across technology verticals including battery energy storage, carbon capture, data centers, and nuclear energy.

The outputs - research articles, whitepapers, software, and decision-support tools - are built to reach the practitioners who act on them, from flagship convenings with senior industry and policy leaders to direct site visits that ground our analysis in operational reality.

At STEER, successful research is measured in more than impactful publications. Our…