Research Associate in Materials Informatics in London

The position is based in the team of Professor Aron Walsh, who leads the Materials Design Group in the Department of Materials at Imperial College London. The research project focuses on the development and deployment of open-source data-driven approaches in materials chemistry and physics.

The topics of interest include:

• Inverse design of crystals, including generative artificial intelligence
• Machine learning force fields, including the description of polycrystalline solids
• Materials informatics techniques, including those suitable for rapid exploration of chemical space

The target areas include clean energy conversion and storage, with a focus on semiconducting and mixed ionic-electronic conducting materials for photovoltaic and photoelectrochemical systems. Your cover letter should state your specific area of interest.

The Research Associate will be responsible for contributing to a high-quality research programme involving a range of materials modelling techniques. These include aspects of computer programming, high-performance computing on the national supercomputer ARCHER2, first-principles methods such as density functional theory, and machine learning methods, including graph neural networks. You will help to mentor other group members and work closely with our experimental collaborators.

Research Duties:

• To take initiatives in the planning of research
• To direct the work of small research teams
• To identify and develop computational techniques for the collection and analysis of data
• To conduct data analysis and model building
• To ensure the validity and reliability of data at all times
• To maintain accurate and complete records of all findings
• To write reports for submission to research sponsors
• To present findings to colleagues and at conferences
• To submit publications to refereed journals
• To provide guidance to staff and students
• To attend relevant workshops and conferences as necessary
• To develop contacts and research collaborations within the College and the wider community
• To promote the reputation of the Group, the Department and the College
• To provide guidance to PhD Students
• To contribute to bids for research grants
• To conduct and plan own scientific work with appropriate supervision
• To publish in high-quality journals and to present data at national and international meetings
• To participate in Group research meetings and internal seminars
• To collaborate with other allied scientists within Imperial College and elsewhere in London and abroad, as appropriate
• To contribute to the smooth running of the Group’s laboratories and facilities with other scientists, clinicians, technicians and students within the laboratories
• Assist in the supervision of undergraduate and postgraduate research students and research assistants as required
• To comply with the College, Division, and Unit safety practices and to attend courses on safety when appropriate
• Any other duties as may be deemed reasonable by Head of group as well as Head of Division/Department/Section

Qualifications:

• Hold a PhD in theoretical or computational physical science or a closely related discipline, or equivalent research, industrial or commercial experience
• Practical experience within a computational research environment and/or publication in relevant and refereed journals
• Experience of electronic structure theory and methods for first-principles calculations
• Experience of training and evaluating machine learning models
• Experience of coding in Python or Julia languages
• Experience of scientific software development
• Experience in the development and application of generative AI models
• Knowledge of materials chemistry and physics
• Knowledge of machine learning applied to chemical systems
• Knowledge of clean energy technologies

We will provide you with an excellent research environment to grow as a research leader. We will support you in future funding proposals and applications and fully include you in any collaborations/networks. Opportunities for professional development are available through the award-winning programmes. The opportunity to continue your career at a world-leading institution and be part of our mission to continue science for humanity. Grow your career: gain access to Imperial’s sector-leading opportunities for promotion and progression. Sector-leading salary and remuneration package (including 39 days off a year and generous pension schemes). Be part of a diverse, inclusive and collaborative work culture with various resources to support your personal and professional development.