Analytical & Characterization Lead

About the role

Our analytical infrastructure is the nervous system of the company. Every extraction yield, mass balance, SCM qualification, and product specification traces back to a measurement — and we need someone to own that infrastructure end-to-end and make every number we report defensible.

Responsibilities

• Own execution of routine and high-volume testing for pilot and R&D campaigns — running samples personally and directing technician support so the measurements behind process decisions, mass balances, and product qualification land on time and to standard.
• Develop and validate analytical methods across ICP-MS, ICP-OES, XRF, isothermal calorimetry, TGA, LOI, foam index, and R3/reactivity, including matrix-matched approaches for fly ash, process liquor, SCMs, cement blends, and ammonium sulfate.
• Operate and maintain analytical instrumentation — running samples yourself, maintaining and troubleshooting instruments, managing service and calibration schedules, and keeping the bench productive day to day.
• Create and implement sampling plans for pilot and demo campaigns — sample count, time points, replication strategy, holding times, blanks, duplicates, CRMs, spike recovery — ensuring mass balance closure and extraction efficiencies are defensible at engineering, customer, and federal-program levels.
• Design and manage calibration infrastructure, including XRF empirical curves across CCR and SCM matrices, ICP standards preparation and traceability, CRM procurement, and periodic verification schedules.
• Establish and enforce a Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) program: control charts, drift monitoring, interlaboratory checks, MDL/LOQ determination, uncertainty budgets, and corrective action protocols.
• Develop and operate cement and SCM qualification workflows: R3 reactivity (ASTM C1897), isothermal calorimetry (ASTM C1702), foam index, strength activity, and bulk electrical resistivity (ASTM C1876) — ensuring any product going to a cement customer ships with a QC packet that survives technical scrutiny.
• Manage data systems: chain of custody, LIMS or equivalent tracking, documentation standards, and reporting templates that feed engineering, R&D, and regulatory deliverables.
• Schedule and prioritize throughput across campaigns, supporting technicians and interns you'll direct.
• Support R&D teams with advanced characterization support for novel feedstocks and emerging co-products, designing analytical approaches for new ash sources, and running advanced campaigns including synchrotron-based X-ray absorption spectroscopy — roughly 5–10% of your time, spanning internal R&D proposals and early-stage process exploration.

Requirements

We are looking for a PhD in analytical chemistry, chemical engineering, materials science, geochemistry, or related field, with the lab leadership to own this end-to-end. We expect this fits people anywhere from a strong recent PhD with demonstrated leadership to a national-lab or industry scientist with several years of hands-on characterization ownership. What matters is that you still want to be at the bench.

• Experience running or substantially owning a multi-instrument characterization lab — at a national lab, core facility, contract lab, or industrial R&D center.
• Genuine appetite for sustained, hands-on testing — including routine and high-volume campaign work, not only method development. A major part of this role is running the measurements pilot and R&D depend on, day to day. This is not a lab-management desk role.
• Direct experience in at least one of: cement/SCM characterization, industrial minerals QA/QC, hydrometallurgical process analytics, or environmental analytical chemistry on CCRs.
• Comfort authoring and defending Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), method validation reports, and uncertainty budgets.
• Statistical fluency for sampling design and QC data interpretation.
• Someone who stays close to the measurement — develops and runs methods personally, not just oversees them.
• A safety-first instinct around acids, halogenated reagents, heavy metals, and respirable particulates.

What success looks like at 12 months

• Every production-relevant instrument has validated methods, documented uncertainty, and a running control chart.
• Testing throughput and turnaround keep pace with pilot and demo operations — campaign data lands on the timeline process and product decisions actually need.
• Mass balances at our pilot and demo facilities close within targets defensible to DoD, DOE, and commercial customers.
• SCM, alumina, and ammonium sulfate products ship with QC packets that partners accept without escalation.
• R&D can move a novel feedstock through a full characterization workflow in days, not weeks.

How You’ll Grow

You're joining as the owner of analytical and characterization at PHNX, and the function grows as we do. As we move from pilot to demonstration to commercial operations, the capability you've built scales with it: more instruments, more matrices, more campaigns, and a team working to the standards you set. You'll own the technical direction of how this company measures everything it makes, with the latitude to grow that into a larger characterization group. The bench is where this role stays rooted, but the scope around it is built to expand as far as you can take it.