Post Bachelors Research Associate - Spatial & Mass Spectrometry Imaging Data Science

Overview

At PNNL, our core capabilities are divided among major departments that we refer to as Directorates within the Lab, focused on a specific area of scientific research or other function, with its own leadership team and dedicated budget.

Our Science & Technology directorates include National Security, Integrated Discovery Sciences, and Energy and Environment. In addition, we have an Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a Department of Energy, Office of Science user facility housed on the PNNL campus.

The Integrated Discovery Sciences Directorate (IDSD) leads fundamental research across biology, chemistry, earth and environmental sciences, materials science, advanced computing, artificial intelligence, quantum information science, mathematics, autonomy, and DOE national user facilities. Our vision is to accelerate scientific discovery by observing, understanding, simulating, predicting, and controlling dynamic biotic-abiotic processes and interactions within complex biological, chemical, material, and Earth systems. We intentionally connect disciplines to advance fundamental discovery science, develop transformative scientific capabilities, and address the nation’s most important challenges in energy, environmental resilience, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, health, and national security.

The Environmental Molecular Sciences Division is comprised of 18 interdisciplinary research teams focused on deciphering molecular-level interactions driving biological and environmental processes across temporal and spatial scales. Through computational analysis and modeling, these findings contribute to predictive understanding of how systems respond to environmental perturbations thus enabling solutions to the nation’s energy, environmental, and human health challenges. The division also manages the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a Department of Energy, Office of Science user facility housed on the PNNL campus that accelerates the research of scientists around the world by providing access to world-class expertise, instrumentation, and computational resources.

The Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) at PNNL seeks a post- bachelor’s research associate to work at the forefront of data acquisition, instrument control, and data processing for PNNL’s unique spatial and mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) technologies. The successful candidate will help streamline the entire path from instrument control and raw data capture through to analysis-ready results, directly enabling high-throughput (HTP) experiments that would otherwise be limited by acquisition and data-processing bottlenecks.

This is a data-facing role at the interface of instrumentation and computation: the candidate will work closely with mass spectrometry scientists to understand acquisition workflows, then build and refine the processing pipelines, scripts, and tools needed to handle large batches of imaging data efficiently. The candidate is also expected to write and improve software that enhances the data acquisition process itself, not just downstream processing — for example, tools that streamline instrument control, automate acquisition steps, or improve data quality at the point of capture.

By removing these bottlenecks, the candidate will help unlock EMSL’s ability to advance research in microbial, environmental, and human health biology at scale.

Modern AI tools are a core part of how this work gets done. The candidate is expected to be comfortable using large language model assistants such as Claude, ChatGPT, and other frontier AI models to accelerate coding, data exploration, documentation, and troubleshooting.

** Position is ONSITE ONLY, and located in Richland, WA.**