Postdoctoral Appointee - Portable Chemical Sensing Systems, Onsite/Hybrid

About the role

We are seeking a Postdoctoral Appointee to join our team. Government agencies such as DARPA, IARPA, and the Department of War, as well as commercial partners ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, turn to us to develop next-generation chemical and biological sensor technologies to solve critical national security and commercial challenges.

Responsibilities

• Develop and mature prototype portable sensing systems for detection of hazardous compounds, drugs of abuse, or related analytes.
• Design, build, integrate, and test hardware and subsystems for field-deployable analytical instruments.
• Conduct laboratory characterization studies to evaluate detection performance, selectivity, sensitivity, analysis time, interferent response, and operational utility.
• Develop or improve sampling methods, thermal interfaces, analytical workflows, or signal-processing methods for portable detection platforms.
• Contribute to instrument control, data acquisition, algorithm development, or hardware/software integration.
• Perform experiments using laboratory analytical chemistry equipment to guide system design and validate prototype performance.
• Support operational testing, user evaluation, and field demonstrations with government stakeholders.
• Collaborate with chemists, engineers, physicists, and computer scientists to transition sensing technologies from laboratory prototypes toward deployable systems.

Requirements

• PhD in Physical Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Chemistry, Engineering, or other relevant field.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, as evidenced by publication(s) in peer-reviewed journals and/or presentation(s) at scientific conferences.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a DOE L-level security clearance.

Qualifications

• Option - Electrical Engineering / Applied Physics: Background in electrical engineering, applied physics, or a closely related field; and experience with analog circuit design for electrometers and analytical instrumentation, electronic measurement systems, or related sensing technologies.
• Option - Ion Mobility Spectrometry / Mass Spectrometry / Electrical Engineering / Applied Physics: Background in electrical engineering, applied physics, chemical engineering or a closely related field; and experience with ion mobility spectrometry, mass spectrometry, analytical instrumentation, electronic measurement systems, or related sensing technologies.
• Option - Mechanical Engineering / Portable Systems: Background in mechanical engineering or a closely related field; and experience designing, building, integrating, or testing portable sensor systems, fieldable instruments, data-collection systems, or other deployable hardware platforms.
• Option - Chemistry / Drug Analysis: Background in chemistry, analytical chemistry, chemical engineering, or a closely related field; and experience performing chemical analysis relevant to drugs, hazardous compounds, trace analytes, complex mixtures, or related applications using laboratory or field-portable analytical methods.
• Option - Computer Science / Hardware-Software Integration: Background in computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, robotics, or a closely related field; and experience developing software and integrating hardware/software systems for sensing, instrument control, automation, data acquisition, signal processing, or embedded/real-time applications.
• Option - Sensor-Adjacent / Related Technical Experience: Background in a relevant science or engineering discipline; and experience in sensor development, sensor system integration, analytical instrumentation, embedded systems, microfabrication, fieldable hardware, signal processing, detection algorithms, chemometrics, or other technical areas closely related to portable sensing systems.
• Ability to work onsite up to 100% of the time.

Pay

The annual salary for this position is $98,500.

Schedule

This position is located in Albuquerque, NM, and the selected applicant can work a combination of onsite and offsite work.