POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER POSITION IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, HYBRID MODELLING AND DIGITAL TWINS FOR SMALL MODULAR REACTORS (SMRS)

IMDEA Energy Institute is a Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence dedicated to conducting research and development (R&D) in renewable and clean energy technologies, fostering partnerships with leading companies in the energy sector.

About the role

IMDEA Energy is opening a Postdoctoral Researcher Position for an interdisciplinary project between the Artificial Intelligence Unit and the Nuclear Technologies Unit. The role involves starting a new research line on applying AI techniques to model, simulate, predict, optimize, and evaluate Small Modular Reactor (SMR) systems. The project will begin with simplified models and simulated data, evolving to more complex models and experimental data from research and industrial collaborators in the nuclear sector.

Responsibilities

• Conduct a state-of-the-art review about physical, data-based, and hybrid models, and digital twins applied to nuclear energy systems (particularly SMRs), contributing to the scientific roadmap of the new research line.
• Identify and select the most suitable AI methodologies and base physical models (neutronics, thermal-hydraulics) for modeling problems such as an SMR digital twin.
• Design hybrid models combining physical knowledge, behavioral equations, and AI techniques, and develop methodologies to estimate variables that cannot be measured directly.
• Develop machine learning models and surrogate models to accelerate physical simulations in SMR components.
• Design the digital twin architecture, defining the data architecture and the interface between the physical model and the AI learning layer.
• Develop an initial digital twin demonstrator for an SMR system or component.
• Apply early anomaly detection, diagnostic, and predictive maintenance techniques as SMR digital twin applications when available data.
• Incorporate methods for uncertainty quantification, robustness, explainability, and validation of AI models.
• Generate, organize, and analyze databases from simulated and experimental data, and validate digital models against them.
• Contribute to national/international project proposals and deliverables.
• Publish and present results at scientific conferences (e.g., Spanish Nuclear Society Annual Meeting, SNETP, CEIDEN, AI forums).
• Co-supervise undergraduate/graduate staff.

Requirements

• PhD in Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, Data Science, Mathematics, Physics, Nuclear Engineering, or equivalent engineering with high computational modeling.
• Proven experience (with specific publications in the motivation letter) in scientific modeling, simulation, and/or control of complex nonlinear dynamical physical systems.
• Proven experience (with specific publications in the motivation letter) in different data-based modeling and AI methodologies.
• Demonstrated solid programming skills in Python (include link to GitHub or portfolio in CV).

Qualifications

• Strong track record of scientific publications in AI.
• Knowledge of thermo-hydraulics, heat transfer, nuclear energy, or reactor safety.
• Experience with physical modeling and simulation of physical, thermal, energy, or industrial systems (e.g., MOOSE, RELAP, TRACE).
• Experience with surrogate models.
• Experience with digital twins.
• Experience with hybrid physical-data architectures (e.g., PINNs).
• Experience with time-series analysis, anomaly detection, or predictive maintenance.
• Experience with reinforcement learning applied to optimization and control.
• Experience developing, assessing, and validating predictive models.
• Experience with uncertainty quantification, explainable AI, and robustness evaluation.
• Experience with OpenModelica, Modelica, OpenFOAM, OpenMC, ANSYS, COMSOL, or other simulation tools.
• Experience with cloud platforms and GPU computing (e.g., HPC, AWS).
• Good software engineering practice for scientific code (version control, testing, documentation).
• Proactive and solution-oriented mindset, with strong multidisciplinary motivation to learn physics and computation and apply AI to the nuclear sector.
• Practical experience delivering outputs in international scientific or industrial projects.
• Strong organizational and documentation skills.
• Experience supervising students.
• Excellent spoken and written communication skills in English.

Benefits

• Remuneration: Between €40,000 – €44,000 per year, depending upon qualification and expertise.
• The contract includes all the benefits of the Spanish Public Health and Social Security System.

Location

IMDEA Energía, Móstoles, Madrid