Verification, Validation and Uncertainty Quantification Postdoc

About the role

The Computational Physics: Verification & Analysis group (XCP-8) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) seeks several highly motivated post-doctoral candidates in the areas of verification, validation (V&V) and uncertainty quantification (UQ).

Responsibilities

• Apply analysis methods, including V&V, UQ, Automatic Differentiation, and/or surrogate models to assess computational physics simulations of materials under extreme conditions.
• Conduct high-level research in simulation, verification, validation, uncertainty quantification, sensitivity analysis, optimization, inverse problems or a closely related focus area.
• Develop, setup, execute, and postprocess numerical models and simulations.
• Publish results in peer-reviewed journals and present at top-tier conferences.

Requirements

• Technical Background: Relevant or closely related field of physics, such as hydrodynamics, fluid dynamics, shock physics, fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, and/or material dynamics.
• Numerical Modeling and Simulation: Experience in development, setup, execution, and postprocessing of numerical models and simulations.
• Research Expertise: Conducted high-level research in simulation, verification, validation, uncertainty quantification, sensitivity analysis, optimization, inverse problems or a closely related focus area.
• Programming: Familiarity with at least one of: Fortran, C++, Python; or experience with Matlab and R.
• Journals/Conferences: Ability to publish research in peer-reviewed journals or conference proceedings, communicate research to an interdisciplinary audience, and work on an interdisciplinary team.

Qualifications

• Education/Experience: PhD in mathematics, physics, materials science, chemistry, engineering, statistics or a closely related discipline. Must be within 5 years of completion of PhD at time of application or have completed all PhD requirements by commencement of the appointment.
• Desired Qualifications: Experience working with both numerical modeling and experimentation; familiarity with High Performance Computing clusters; experience with radiation transport, high-energy-density physics, equations-of-state, shock physics, high explosive modeling, material failure, material strength under high strain rates, magnetohydrodynamics; proficiency with software engineering tools like version control systems, web-based software repository systems, issue trackers, online collaboration platforms, and continuous integration systems.