To apply: Please email MRSECpostdoc@brandeis.edu a CV, a list of 3 references, a brief description of your previous research, experience with computational research, and (if any) systems administration experience. Please include ‘MRSEC Research Computing Fellow’ in the email subject line.
The Brandeis Brandeis BioInspired Soft Materials Research Center (a National Science Foundation MRSEC) has an opening for a MRSEC Research Computing Fellow. This position is designed for a researcher who is looking to stay connected to scientific research while preparing for a career in scientific computation or information technology. The primary goal of the Research Computing Fellow will be to work with students and postdocs in computational, theoretical, and experimental research labs in the Brandeis MRSEC to enable, advance, and support scientific computing efforts. Activities will include working to develop novel computing solutions, developing machine learning strategies and other automated data analysis procedures, and helping to optimize code for use on modern CPU and GPU architectures on the Brandeis HPC and national supercomputing resources. The Fellow will also help to train researchers and best computational practices, through one-on-one meetings and group training sessions. The Fellow will thus gain significant experience in mentorship. If desired, the Fellow will also be encouraged to develop her/his independent research project as part of the MRSEC. In addition, she/he will take a lead role in directing the Brandeis MRSEC computational facility high performance computing cluster; the Brandeis Technology Services group will provide on-the-job training in systems administration to support this role.
The Brandeis MRSEC seeks to create new materials that capture the remarkable functionalities found in living organisms. The center includes two Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs). IRG1, Self-Limiting Assembly (SLA), seeks to elucidate the physical principles for engineering components that self-assemble into large, but finite-size, superstructures. The adaptive functions of biological materials, including viral shells, cytoskeletal filaments, and photonic nanostructures of bird feathers arise from the regulated finite size of self-assembled architectures. In contrast, most inorganic materials form unlimited structures like crystals. IRG2, Biological Active Materials, will establish rational design principles for building 3D adaptive active matter, leading to robust active materials endowed with capabilities currently found only in living organisms, such as crawling, reconfiguring, regenerating, and reproducing.
The ideal candidate would have experience in performing large-scale simulations, programming for highly parallelized and/or GPU architectures, proficiency in C++ and the Unix shell environment, an interest in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, and a PhD in condensed matter physics, biophysics, theoretical or computational chemistry, computer science (but with background in the physical sciences), or a related field.
To apply: Please email MRSECpostdoc@brandeis.edu a CV, a list of 3 references, a brief description of your previous research, experience with computational research, and (if any) systems administration experience. Please include ‘MRSEC Research Computing Fellow’ in the email subject line.
Start Date: As soon as April 2022. Location: Brandeis University MRSEC, Waltham, MA, USA