Graduate R&D Intern - Materials Science

Responsibilities

• Apply technical expertise and instrumental analysis to troubleshoot and resolve a broad variety of materials-related product, production, and/or sourcing challenges.
• Support the continuous improvement of MSA product performance in demanding, real-world applications through materials-related investigations.
• Cook up and perform exploratory destructive and non-destructive testing on product samples to better understand expected mechanical, thermal, and chemical performance.
• Utilize in-house analytical equipment to support engineering conclusions and recommendations.
• Analyze and interpret data, making recommendations on next steps.
• Capture technical decision-making in reports and presentations that are appropriate for broad technical audiences.
• Research relevant new materials, conduct probing experiments into feasibility, and share results with engineering leadership and product development teams.

Qualifications

• You can commit to a continuous extended internship (i.e. 9 months - 1 year duration).
• You want your work to be meaningful.
• You are eager to learn and adaptable.
• You like your work to be dynamic and varied from day-to-day.
• You enjoy working within global teams and with a diverse group of peers, whose experience may range from interns to PhD-level experts.
• You have a solid technical foundation in material properties and behaviors.
• You have a deep understanding of mechanical, chemical, and thermal material properties, and how they relate to material failure and part design.
• You are interested in a broad range of material domains, including thermoplastics/polymers, polymeric coatings, metals, and/or composites.
• You have experience working with a variety of analytical instruments, such as FTIR, GC-MS, DSC, XRF, XRD, and/or SEM.
• You have strong interpersonal and communication skills.
• You have demonstrated the ability to manage your time across multiple simultaneous projects.

Nice-to-have skills and experiences

• Experience with Atlassian Confluence & JIRA, Microsoft 365, Miro, Minitab, PowerBI
• Experience in applying Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) principles and/or inferential statistics.