Associate Research Scientist (PREP0004072) Full-time

Associate Research Scientist

This position is part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Professional Research Experience (PREP) program. NIST recognizes that its research staff may wish to collaborate with researchers at academic institutions on specific projects of mutual interest, thus requires that such institutions must be the recipient of a PREP award. The PREP program requires staff from a wide range of backgrounds to work on scientific research in many areas. Employees in this position will perform technical work that underpins the scientific research of the collaboration.

The position is in the Applied Economics Office (AEO), a part of the Engineering Laboratory (EL) at NIST, which provides economic products and services through research and consulting to industry and government agencies in support of productivity enhancement, economic growth, and international competitiveness, with a focus on improving the life-cycle quality and economy of constructed facilities and manufacturing processes that support social and economic functions. AEO is integrated within EL's major research thrusts. AEO delivers high quality research and tool development that informs and assists stakeholders in their decision-making processes.

Research Title: Life Cycle System Science of Materials and Engineered Systems

The work will entail: We are looking for a life cycle assessment (LCA) expert (US Citizen) to join our team in evaluating materials and engineered systems using life cycle system science. The position will collaborate with NIST researchers and NIST's external collaborators in a variety of topics relevant to their work including economists, engineers, and scientists – connecting LCA to fundamental research, life-cycle analysis, and decision support tools related to activities across a range of research topic areas: building and infrastructure, energy, circular economy, resilience, and decision science. Initial activities will include developing and updating of LCA models for a variety of construction materials and building systems, semiconductors, microelectronics, and emerging technology recovery pathways, and engineered direct air capture technologies that will be published and maintained in repositories on the Federal LCA Commons.

Key responsibilities could include, but are not limited to, leading the following activities:

• Review, assessment, and improvements to NIST's existing LCA data models and decision support tools
• Identify, quantify, and prioritize data gaps in product categories of interest to NIST
• Maintain and expand the Construction Materials and Building Systems repositories on the Federal LCA Commons
• Automate LCA model development workflow for transparency, repeatability, and efficiency
• Review, validation, and analysis of dynamic operational electricity LCA data
• Identify research and data gaps in current LCA-related activities at NIST
• Write research slide decks, reports, and/or journal articles
• Draft NIST research plan for increasing standardization and harmonization in LCA modeling
• Participate in ACLCA committees and sub-committees and LCA-relevant NIST consortia as appropriate

Qualifications:

• US Citizen
• PhD in Engineering, Environmental Science, or related field
• At least 10 years of experience in life cycle assessment research
• Experience with life cycle assessment of at least five of the following topics: chemicals, plastics, photovoltaics, batteries, carbon dioxide removal, semiconductors, microelectronics, concrete, other building materials, or whole buildings
• Extensive experience with OpenLCA and its developer tools, and public life cycle inventory (LCI) databases, including the Federal LCA Commons repositories and GREET suite of tools
• Experience developing and updating large LCI datasets
• Experience in solving complex LCA-related problems (i.e., long supply chains and production processes, and evaluation of multiple impact indicators and methods
• Excellent writing and communication skills
• Self-driven and capable of working independently with minimal supervision